You might have heard ofprosopagnosia , a cognitive disorderliness that   ensue in an unfitness to recognize intimate mass by their font . It can be so severe that sufferers even have difficulty recognizing the face of friends , have it off ones , or kin appendage .

This condition in reality has a lesser - known and under - search cousin-german call phonagnosia , which results in the unfitness to recognize the voices of familiar masses .

A novel studyreported inBrain and Languagehas approximate that more than   3   percent of hoi polloi might be born with phonagnosia , most of whom   do n’t even realise they have it . Psychologists from the University of Southern California surveyed 730 participant . Out   of those , 23 respondent were trust to have phonagnosia .

The web - found survey show the participants four headshots of a noteworthy person , such as a politician , musician , or actor . It was secure the player knew all of these the great unwashed beforehand . They then listened to two forgetful audio clip of a person talking : one was a non - celebrity and one was the voice of one of the render celebrities . The chore was to say which audio clip was the fame vocalization and then discover which fame it was . They were also given an imagination test . This involved asking them how easily they could imagine the voices of certain celebrities , along with inanimate sound such as breaking glass .

On fair , people had a 76 percent truth in distinguish the fame voice . However , 3.2 percentage of the sample scored more than 2.28 stock deviation lower than this . The researchers concluded that these people are potential to suffer from a notable unfitness to recognize voice , with symptom suggestive of phonagnosia .

The study authors notice that Old people in reality tended to perform better on the tests , suggesting that people are born with phonagnosia . This is different than   prosopagnosia , which is often acquired later in the life through trauma or brain harm .

The study was on the small side , so it is difficult to apply these findings to the whole universe . Nonetheless , the authors say this is likely to be the largest study ever behave into the possible prevalence of phonagnosia . TheBritish Psychology Societyhas said it go for the study can raise cognizance of this condition and surrogate further research .