Capgras Syndrome Is The Belief That A Loved One Has Been Replaced

Patients Agree The Person In Front Of Them Looks The Same

They Still Believe An Impostor Has Taken The Real One's Place

The Delusion Appears With Mental Illness And With Brain Injury

Researchers Still Disagree About What Causes It

One Patient Called His Parents Impostors Only When He Saw Them

Over The Phone He Accepted Them As His Mother And Father

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After A Car Accident One Man Believed His Wife Had Died In The Crash

The Woman Living With Him Was His Wife

He Believed She Was A Duplicate

Researchers Ellis And Lewis Described His Case In 2001

Doctors Call What He Had Capgras Syndrome

People With It Say Someone Close Was Replaced By An Impostor

It Is Often Someone Like A Parent Or A Sibling

The Impostor Looks Almost Exactly Like The Real Person

Patients Accept That The Two Look The Same

They Still Insist The Real One Has Been Replaced

In Some Cases The Double Is An Object Rather Than A Person

French Psychiatrist Joseph Capgras First Described It In 1923

It Is Also Known As The Illusion Of Doubles

A Review Later Gathered 258 Published Cases From 175 Papers

Its Authors Split Them Into Psychiatric And Physical Causes

Older Age And Memory Problems Were Linked To The Physical Group

Doubles Of Objects Were Also More Common In Those Cases

Aggression Was Linked To Both Groups

A Patient Known Only As DS Claimed His Parents Were Impostors

He Made That Claim While He Was Looking At Them

Over The Telephone He Did Not Make It

The Same Two People Were Real On The Phone And Fake In Person

Researchers Hirstein And Ramachandran Reported His Case

They Called His Delusion Modality Specific

It Depended On Whether He Was Seeing His Parents Or Hearing Them

Next They Showed Him Photographs Of People He Knew

Photos Of His Parents Were Included

He Also Saw Photographs Of Unfamiliar People

Sensors Recorded The Activity Of Sweat Glands In His Skin

The Researchers Say Healthy People React More To Faces They Know

His Skin Reacted No More To His Parents Than To Strangers

They Suggest Damage Between Two Parts Of His Brain

One Part Processes Faces And The Other Is The Limbic System

Later They Showed Him A Series Of Photos Of One Woman's Face

In Each Photo She Was Looking In A Different Direction

DS Said They Were Different Women Who Looked Just Like Each Other

The Researchers Think He Stores Separate Memories Of The Same Person

A Psychologist Wrote That Some Patients Called The Double A Robot

His Name Is Frank Pollick And He Studies The Uncanny Valley

Engineering Professor Masahiro Mori Proposed The Idea In 1970

Mori Suggested That People Accept Robots More As They Look More Human

Near Full Human Likeness He Predicted A Sudden Drop In Acceptance

In English His Name For That Drop Became The Uncanny Valley

Pollick Wrote A Paper On Whether Real People Can Cause It Too

He Looked At Dubbed Films And At Fear Of Clowns

His Final Example Was Capgras Syndrome

A Dubbed Film Has A Mismatch Between The Lips And The Sound

Capgras Has No Mismatch Like That

Patients Accept The Double As Physically Identical

Pollick Wrote That An Uncanny Feeling Could Still Arise

He Wrote That The Robot Cases Would Seem To Match It Perfectly

Pollick Said It Could Come From How The Brain Processes People

For That He Pointed To An Explanation From Ellis And Lewis

In Their Account The System That Recognizes A Face Still Works

A Second System Tied To Emotional Familiarity Is Damaged

The Person Can Be Identified But Does Not Feel Familiar