What is the term for the inability to recognize familiar faces?

The term for the inability to recognize familiar faces is prosopagnosia. This condition, often referred to as "face blindness," specifically affects a person's ability to recognize and identify faces, even those of close friends and family. It is a type of agnosia, which is a broader term that describes a variety of disorders that involve the inability to process sensory information, but prosopagnosia is distinct in its focus on facial recognition. Individuals with prosopagnosia can still see faces normally; they simply cannot process or recognize them as familiar.

In contrast, amnesia refers to memory loss, agnosia encompasses a range of disorders affecting perception and recognition across different sensory modalities, and apraxia involves difficulties in motor planning and executing movements, not related to face recognition. Thus, prosopagnosia is the very specific term that accurately describes the inability to recognize faces, establishing it as the correct answer.