Oliver Sacks: Face Blindness

Dr. Sacks talks about people (including himself) who have neurological difficulty recognizing faces, and how they adapt and compensate. From his book, THE MIND'S EYE.
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[@cinnaplid]

I have had a problem with 'place blindness' all my life. Reading Dr. Sacks's book made me realize for the first time that it might be a condition, not a character flaw or simple inattention to my surroundings. I've always been teased about my terrible sense of direction -- now I don't feel so bad about it.

[@alsinakiria]

I remember the first time I realized that something was wrong was when I was a child and saw a police sketch for the first time. The idea of being able to remember enough of a face to describe it to someone else and get a recognizable image blew my mind. I realized that I wouldn't be able to do that with my own mother. Images look distorted in my mind. I can remember certain features of a face, but if that feature changes (say they cut their beard) I won't know who they are. I didn't recognise my own father when he cut his beard. My mother has the same issue. I was born legally blind. I got glasses at age 3 and essentially have 20/20 vision. I didn't see faces for the first few years of my life (same with my mother) and I can't help but wonder if that contributed to it.

[@peterjf7723]

I had very good sight but still had prosopagnosia, though I did not realise it was not normal until I read Dr. Sacks book. My father had the same problem and sometimes failed to recognise me on occasions when he picked me up from school, he said that the school uniforms made everyone look alike. I think it very likely that you not seeing faces for the first few years of your life was the cause of your condition. Research has shown that the early years in a child’s life are a critically important window of opportunity to develop cognitive skills. At birth, there is a rapid increase in the number of neural connections, synapses, in the developing brain. This is followed by a period of elimination of unused synapse connections.

[@jasonjackson3114]

Since the advent of a mild brain injury I have a not so severe case of prosopagnosia. Relatives who I haven't seen for a couple of years I often don't know who they are. Very often people who pass by me on the street look familiar or I mistake them for people who I've seen elsewhere. I now know not to approach people who I think I know unless they say hi to me first. : ) I can recognise most friends and relatives. No biggie.

[@glennalperin]

In my day-to-day life, I do try to focus on my strengths and talents, but the reality is that I still have these enormous limitations which color every aspect of my social and professional life. Obviously, a police sketch artist is not going to be my calling, but it turns out that a great many professions require, as an essential component of the job, and ability to recognize people. Tutoring has worked out well for me because I can plan where I meet people, and my function is about helping

[@abocas]

It warms my Scandinavian heart that, in 50 or so years n the US, dr. Sacks never lost his nice British accent 😊

[@elgmalone]

I don't play an instrument or sing. But I do love listening to music. I always know right away who the singer is whenever I hear a new song. I love listening to the instrumentals too. I'll listen to a particular song over and over again just to single out each instrument.

[@reaganwiles_art]

Obvious his great admiration for his father, watch the light come on!

[@glennalperin]

and it is a wonderful gift to have. I also get a lot of enjoyment out of tutoring and watching as my students learn and integrate information and concepts in a way they never could before so that they feel like they have really accomplished something. Yes, I provided the support and guidance to get them there, but really, it is the student doing most of the work. If they didn't have any desire to want to learn, I don't think I would be all that successful as a tutor.

[@glennalperin]

Ideally, that is what I do, but sometimes it creates a very awkward social moment because the expectation is that I already know who they are. (My excellent social acting skills only compound this problem.) It is often difficult to give a proper explanation that people will either have time for or will necessarily be open to listening to. What I often do is tell people, upon first meeting them, to reintroduce themself to me if they see me later, and tell me where we met and what we talked

[@glennalperin]

understand, assuming they even can. Simply having a communal place where people can come together and talk, whether it be youtube, a yahoo group, a livejournal community, or any other type of place online, is a liberating experience for those people who are just discovering that this quirky condition they have had for some time really has a name and is not at all related to a person being "lazy." I have been extremely consistent with the words and messages I have put in this discussion.

[@glennalperin]

My profession these days is a combination of contract writing and tutoring. I can appreciate, as a tutor, your willingness and desire as a teacher to see the student behind those struggles, and I am sure your student did also. I am also sure that should you encounter a similar student again, you probably would give such a student an oral exam.

[@bodryn]

Thank you for that invite. I am currently on a library computer, which I occasionally access, rather than at home where I have a PC online, currently across the national border. I will try to visit your site as time allows.

[@somelikeithotmel]

Me too! Thought I might be a bit daft, esp. as I can't seem to recall the conversations I had with the people I don't recognise either. Hand in hand, I now understand. I gravitate to unusual people.

[@elgmalone]

...This was really scary for me. Ever since I had my son I've dreaded the thought of losing him in a crowd like that and not being able to find him and it really killed me to think that another parent who had just met my kid and only known him for maybe an hour at that point, was able to spot him right off the bat when I myself couldn't.

[@peterjf7723]

My father sometimes failed to recognise me on occasions when he picked me up from school, he said that the school uniforms made everyone look alike.

[@glennalperin]

My purpose here is both to discuss with you as well as to educate a much broader audience. It is a bonus for me that I am able to do both at the same time.

[@bodryn]

As a young man I had excellent face recognition, but now at retirement age, my facial recognition is not all that good. I usually recognize people best when they are in their normal location. However, my voice recognition is excellent and I can often immediately identify obscure actors or radio speakers by their voices.

[@rez4999]

Gonna borrow this video for my presentation, Mr. Sacks!

[@elgmalone]

tried my hardest to scrutinize people's faces and look for clues that would help me pick them out to no avail. It just doesn't stick. It wasn't until I first heard the name of prosopagnosia and found the faceblind folks that I realized what the problem was and how to deal with it. That's when I stopped bothering with the face altogether. I no longer care what they look like and only look people in the eye because that's what's considered socially acceptable.

[@glennalperin]

I have represented people with prosopagnosia for quite some time. As I wrote, I put up the first personal web site on the topic, and unwittingly discovered that prosopagnosia was so much more common than any cognitive scientist up to that point in time had ever concieved. I am here commenting as a result of the continued advocacy work I perform with regard to prosopagnosia.

[@bodryn]

I am now retired but I really regret that I didn't have more opportunity to offer my skills to help these kids in need. I always felt I had the empathy for the job. I remember a kid, for example, with ADD and migraine. Other teachers complained about him being a nuisance kid but I always let him out of class to go to the bathroom and was always kind and open to him visiting me at the desk. One time he told me the paper in front of him just looked blank. Migraine is mysterious....

[@glennalperin]

I am aware of that, but it is useful to point out to our audience who may not be as aware as I am. There are other words I am not fond of which also have a clinical definition, "disorder" being my least favorite of these, but I recognize the usefulness of having such words in a context where a specific meaning can be applied to them which might be different from the meaning used in the general public. Very good point made here.

[@glennalperin]

understanding and kindness from other people. The only way I can expect to get that is to keep telling people what it is like for me, and what I need to make social interactions more meaningful for me and whomever I happen to come into contact with. The more I say it, the more it is heard and understood, the greater the chance of social success for me later down the road AND the greater the chance is of my not offending or harming people by failing to recognize them.

[@bodryn]

In my case, having acquired this difficulty sometime during my life, I feel that there must have been some small brain damage that occurred during my life that occurred in an area of the brain responsible for facial recognition. When I was a kid, I felt I could never forget a face. Nowadays, I just take a friendly attitude and say "Hi" to strangers the way my late cousin used to always do.

[@glennalperin]

I don't think it stops me from being a social adult, but it certainly puts some additional perspective on it. For one thing, although I try to be frierndly to everybody, I quickly learn that there are some people and some personality types which are not worth my limited time and energy to engage. Those people simply won't understand me for being me, and being judged for who I am and the choices I have made is not how I wish to spend my time.

[@bodryn]

Some days ago, I didn't recognize a man who I'd spoken to a day earlier, because he was outside taking a smoke break and looked very different to me. Fortunately my wife recognized him immediately, we went over and talked to him, and I avoided what could have been thought a snub by somebody who was doing us a big favor.

[@glennalperin]

What you implied was "try different coping strategies until you find one or several which work." What I am here to tell you is that the vast majority of coping strategies really don't work in all except for very specific circumstances which usually don't come up in real life situations very often. About a month and a half ago, while I was working with a student in a public location, I was approached by somebody who obviously knew me. I had no idea who that person was and still do not know.

[@bodryn]

I only taught for 4 1/2 years. I was not good in large classes, my special ability was in tutoring - I had excellent results in a small class of "slow" students because I had time to treat them as individuals. I should have been in special education, but I wasn't. My wife thought nobody could teach her chess but I was able to do so. I was lucky enough to learn to swim at age 22 from a USAF buddy who was very methodical. My sister had tried to teach me and failed. Tutoring is my gift.

[@glennalperin]

For me, all people had, and still do have, the potential to be very dangerous to me. I am constantly on guard looking out for my personal safety in ways most people without prosopagnosia can not even begin to comprehend or imagine. I have consulted parents and educaters with details they should be aware of (many are not) in order to keep their children and students who have prosopagnosia safe.

[@glennalperin]

As noted earlier, I have spoken to a great many people who have prosopagnosia. I actually stopped counting when it got over a hundred, but it is probably in the thousands by now. From this, I feel very safe in describing, very generally, how prosopagnosia may effect those people. Many of them are afraid to speak up due to personal or professional reasons, but they are more than willing to be used as examples in a very general sense. It is from this viewpoint of respect for them that I speak.

[@glennalperin]

about. Just as i find locations helpful in identifying people, so too do I find conversations helpful. I can remember such details a lot better than anything to do with what the person looks like.

[@elgmalone]

It was a little different for me. Before the age of 7 I had a hard time with math and the reason for it was I was being taught by memorization. I still remember in 2nd grade having the hardest time learning how to do multiplication tables, when my mom stepped in. She sat me down and taught the method behind it, that it was really all about addition. After that I took off with math and even learned to love it. I never did take calculus but even though I didn't take the class ...

[@glennalperin]

The difference here is that these are pervasive elements of my life. They don't go away. I never get a break from them. And yet, people still judge me and my actions because of circumstances they are either unaware of or can not understand. Because I am judged for my "failures", that negatively effects a wide range of my potential social and professional life. Therefore, as a coping strategy, it is far smarter for me to tell people about my prosopagnosia so at least there will be a proper

[@glennalperin]

I had was arranged via telephone to meet with somebody in person for an interview. This is rare with what I do, but I respect the process and had no problem meeting this person. I would have invested the same amount of time over the telephone as I did in person, and quite likely, this process actually saved me some time later as well as I had a chance to evaluate the student I would be working with in person, an opportunity not open to me discussing the natter with his mother on the phone.

[@bodryn]

Yes, I had forgotten Anne Sullivan's name. I have read accounts of this in the past and also there have been dramatizations of her and Helen K on TV. Giving special attention to special people IMHO is humanity at its best.

[@glennalperin]

Again, PaulaQueenie, I've had 34 years (techinically 32.5 given the date of my brain injury) to think about and develop coping strategies. I have been able to consider far more coping strategies by talking to other people with prosopagnosia since October of 1996 when my personal web site went online. Probably, I am the single most-knowledgeable person about coping strategies for people with prosopagnosia simply because so many people have spoken to me about their own strategies.

[@glennalperin]

As for it being worrying that many people present similar facial features, only now have you finally entered my world, PaulaQueenie. Now recall that every one of those similarly-facially-featured people has a distinct personality and tends to get offended when I get their identity wrong.

[@glennalperin]

I meant to comment on this point yesterday because I have some strong feelings about it. While it is technically true that one can't miss what one has never known, I've come to realize recently that there is so much I did miss out on experientially simply because I couldn't recognize faces, and correspondingly, lacked a necessary collection of social skills as a child. I believe I am now mourning the loss of those experiences I never had, and recently wrote extensively about that.

[@glennalperin]

This is really what I meant earlier when I wrote that isolation was a maladaptive coping strategy for myself. It worked. In fact, it worked extremely well for a very long period of time. I deliberately chose not to interact with a lot of people because it was too stressful for me to do so because of my prosopagnosia. In the end, however, it didn't do me any good, and I am sure that is a significant piece of what led to my depression. I realize it is more complicated than that.

[@elgmalone]

The problems that I have with memorization have held me back my entire life. Math and science I excelled at because there was always a method behind it, but even then I had somewhat of a problem because I could never remember the names of anything or anyone. So though I understood the process behind how things worked, I could never give the name for it. Same with history. I always understood what happened and why, but names and dates always escaped me.

[@glennalperin]

Fair points. I believe the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children focusses primarily around children in the United States, but I also wouldn't doubt that they would help out wherever they are asked to do so around the world. For the original citation of the previous data described:

[@glennalperin]

I am aware of a couple of doctors who have difficulty with prosopagnosia. I don't doubt there are far more than those I know, nor do I doubt that the other occupations you mentioned also have a certain number of people with prosopagnosia. Personally, I think having the condition makes you that much more able to relate and offer advice and feedback to your patients, regardless of what your condition may be, prosopagnosia or otherwise.

[@glennalperin]

Nor would I give my life for anybody else. I don't know what their lives would be like just as they do not know what my life is like. The best we can all do is explain our situations and hope for enough people to display understanding and support to limit the negative effects of whatever it happens to be that we are dealing with.

[@glennalperin]

for such intimate and close scrutiny of specific physical features of any specific face. It would be considered extremely rude to stare at a face long enough for me to make such a distinction, let alone a professional photographer whose job it is to snap photos quickly. That story amazed me primarily because it was not just one photographer who made the error. It was a collection of photographers who made the same mistake.

[@glennalperin]

You asked a separate but very important question here also: What do I excel at? In answer to that, I suppose my two current professions are good examples of that. I am a tutor, primarily in areas of reading, writing and math. I also do life coaching. My other vocation is being a letter ghostwriter. I write letters for people in their own voice for whatever reason (other than legal) that they need. I am an excellent communicator, and in both of these vocations, that skill is very useful.

[@elgmalone]

@bodryn I knew I had a problem with it for as long as I could remember. I always assumed it had something to do with my dyslexia and I also have ADD and my mom always told me my problem was I simply don't pay close enough attention to the way people look. So for years I would scrutinize every face I saw looking for something that would stick out with very little success. When I finally found out there was a name for it and that it was a completely separate disorder I stopped paying ...

[@glennalperin]

We share, specifically, a difficulty with facial recognition, but how that manifests in each of us who has it, and how severe our manifestations are, is often quite different. I've also consulted with a variety of people about it including parents, researchers, and any person who has an interest in it. I also wrote the foreword to a book about it, and blog on the web site of Psychology Today about my own personal experiences of living with prosopagnosia.

[@glennalperin]

I am quite confident in me, both in my strengths and in my challenges. One who doesn't know their weaknesses will surely be drowned by them. As for the question of reinforcement in general, I think it is not only useful but essential. After all, it is the basis of our world economy. If you do a good job, you will, theoretically, be rewarded for your work. Of course, it is never as simple in practice as it is in principle.

[@glennalperin]

I am weary of any person who suggests that any other person is "incomplete" because they lack something everybody else has. I believe we all have something of value to contribute, and it should be up to each one of us, regardless of disability status, to make such decisions for ourselves.

[@glennalperin]

There are such ways, but again, it gets very very tricky.The moment I happen to mention I have a disability, not only do I allow others the possibility to accomodate (a positive), but I also allow them the possibility to discriminate against me becayse of my disability (a negative). I've mentioned I am self-employed and discussed some of what I do. I am typically given "interviews" by the people I work with. Usually, these are relatively short and information based, but one recent example

[@glennalperin]

I had a brain injury at the age of 16 months as a result of falling out of my crib and subsequently winding upin a coma. (That's the short version, but it will do for now.) Certainly, there are many skills I utilise in the process of social interaction, and I am an extremely discriminating person when it comes to people I wish to spend my time with. As you note, much of this is learned, but much of it also is based upon common sense around my major personal goal of preserving my safety.

[@bodryn]

@bent540 1) I already have prescription glasses 2) this facial recognition thing is something that I noticed a couple decades ago. Thankfully my wife has a great memory for names and faces and always sees people, even when we're driving around.

[@glennalperin]

It also helped that on an average shift, I could see a few hundred people in rapid succession, and I never had to remember the specifics of any of them as long as I was pleasant to everybody.

[@ImehSmith]

I forget names and dates instantly once they tell me unless it’s some weird, silly, or unique name. However I remember faces and moreso, interactions from when and how I first met someone til what occurred when we last saw each other! Ppl say I was an elephant in my last life because I never forget any anything. I, however, have car blindness. I can’t even find my car. They all look the same. Unless it’s neon green, pink, yellow, or some vehicle wrap or decal to distinguish it, or it’s a hummer, bus, or cute bubble like car, they ALL are shades of grey. Muted grey green/blue/burgundy/etc. And every car, sedan, truck, suv, etc are shaped exactly the same. Maybe the headlights are diff or it has some fancy wing on the back, but all cars from the 2000 til today all basically are shaped exactly the same!! I actually lost my car in downtown DC thinking it got towed….then stolen. Only to have it “found” 2 months later when the cops who FAILED MISERABLY finding it as they gave me tickets every week.

[@bodryn]

I was a teacher at one time. I had an 8th grade math student who was eager to answer and very active answering math questions in class. But he could not pass a written test! I knew it had to be related to dyslexia so I could never flunk him. The sad thing was I didn't think about that I could have given him the tests orally and he probably would have done very well. It was a bad school in that other teachers, counselors, etc., never said anything about it and the kid suffered.

[@glennalperin]

Granted, I can not control how somebody else feels, but I can control what I do to influence how they feel about me. All I can do is hope that people listen to me when I describe my difficulties and accept them at face value without questioning me for bringing the topic up. If I don't that, at teh very least, I am setting myself up for failure down the road when an inevitable social gaff will be unavoidable.

[@glennalperin]

have a choice in the matter. If I didn't dwell on it somewhat, the odds are a lot greater I would get hurt, either physically or emotionally. Knowing one's risk factors is the first step in being able to mitigate them, and knowing that I can't recognize faces has, as I said, an enormous impact on the choices I have made and will make in my life. I am self-employed, and typically meet my clients at their residence or at a public location. If at a public location, I do let them know I will be

[@glennalperin]

I would argue that there is substantial financial gain to be made by any person capable of face recognition, particularly in light of the personal, political, and economic struggles I face as a direct result of not being able to recognize faces.

[@elgmalone]

Yes, I have prosopagnosia and another disorder connected with it called topograph agnosia. I don't recognize anyone's face, including mine in family albums. I've always relied more on voice recognition than anything else. As far as the way people look, I pay attention to aspects aside from their face. Hair, height, body type, style of clothing, also their movements, hand gestures, body movements. For years I was told I simply didn't pay close enough attention to the way people look so I ...

[@bodryn]

My wife and I feel we have a number of good friends whom we respect and who like having us around. I'm much into ideas but I also try to be sensitive to people so I can avoid offending them, for example, I don't normally flaunt my education around my hometown because it would offend people who weren't so fortunate. You might want to read some Dale Carnegie. I did years ago and it was very helpful in interpersonal relations.

[@glennalperin]

As previously mentioned, I manage a few email lists for people who have prosopagnosia. I've written to, or been written to by, well over a hundred different people with prosopagnosia. I have some basis for understanding the difference between my personal manifestation of the condition and that of others who have it. So yes, "we" reflects people who have prosopagnosia, as I am one such person.

[@glennalperin]

Disturbed spatial orientation IS an agnosia, PauleQueenie. In most such places, topographic agnsoia is written of, and in limited places, I have also seen mention of environmental agnosia. The distinction here is between those who can navigate spacially by reading maps but not navigate in a concrete physical setting (environmental agnosia), and those who can not navigate maps (topographic agnosia, topographagnosia). Either one of these would cause spatial disorientation.

[@glennalperin]

This is a good analogy except for one minor point: it only works when people know and believe you are trying. As noted earlier, I don't try to recognize people except in the most rare of circumstances. In fact, also as a coping strategy, I tell people that I make little effort at this, and that they will need to reintroduce themself to me if they hope for me to have a successful social interaction with them. If a person doesn't believe me, by not making the effort, I APPEAR pompous.

[@aimeemacdn]

Please let us see the series "the mind traveller"!

[@elgmalone]

@Fosius Yes it is. It's actually seems to be part of a spectrum disorder. Many people with autism have prosopagnosia. And though those with PA might not pass on that particular disorder, it seems that the spectrum disorder tends to manifest itself in different ways. For example I have dyslexia, ADD, prosopagnosia, and topograph agnosia. My mom has topograph agnosia but none of the other disorders. my son appears to be borderline autistic and have ADHD but has no problem with facial ...

[@glennalperin]

I am not a stupid person. I have tried many things to make my life easier and safer for me. Some of those things I have tried I still do. Others I have tried and discarded as not helpful. There is a whole range of circumstances completely outside of my ability to control, but I can influence it, or try to, by letting people know, "this is what I need from you." Rather than you telling me what I need, try listening to me, and I will tell you what I need. Doing that will cause less conflict.

[@glennalperin]

As a person who happens to have prosopagnosia, as a child, I was a sitting duck for potential abduction by a stranger. In fact, I am told I very nearly was abducted once. (I don't recall this incident, but I have been told of it many times.) In a department store chain which no longer exists, my mother had security place the building in lock-down mode until I was found, in different clothing, But I was a perfect target since I could not distinguish my mother from this person.

[@glennalperin]

the depth of circumstances behind their actions.

[@glennalperin]

People I do not recognize include myself (I walk into mirrors sometimes), family members, friends, acquaintances, celebrities (recall I previously mentioned I shook Jimmy Carter's hand and had no knowledge until after the fact), bosses and other professionals it would be professionally and socially useful to recognize. It seems that according to what you say here, Paule, unintentionally socially snubbing people would have no negative social or professional consequences on my life.

[@glennalperin]

In my case, it meant not having to interact with people I couldn't recognize. Therefore, the positives outweighed the negatives for me, and the less interaction I had with others, at that time in my life, the better I felt. Of course, it was not ideal, but my choices were based on an understanding of what I felt I needed at that time, and tehy served me well in the moment even if those choices actually harmed me later in life when I couldn't easily adapt to the different needs I had.

[@glennalperin]

Most of my social interactions occur with "strangers". I put that in quotes because most of the time, of course, such people know who I am, but it is often the case I do not know who they are, and it is difficult, as I just wrote a minute ago, to ask for what I need in that moment without coming across in a way that is too egotistical. Of course, any social interaction for me, particularly unplanned ones, involve a great deal of stress and detective work on my part.

[@glennalperin]

I am sorry they have not been to your liking, but I can not help that. I hope that others will take away far more from this discussion I am having with you, if I can even call it a "discussion", than you yourself have given credit for it occurring. I certainly don't need your endorsement, but you have definitely provided some comic relief and frustration for those of us who know what we are really talking about, PauleQueenie.

[@elgmalone]

@bodryn ... attention to the face and started focusing more on body type, hair, voice, clothing, ect... it's not perfect but I have a much easier time recognizing people using these methods.

[@glennalperin]

Trust me. I LOVE name badges, and make use of them quicker than any person could ever notice. (I've often been asked how I knew who people were, only to say something about the name badge which the person never knew I had noticed.) The problem here twofold: First, a person forgets their name badge. It may be company policy not to, but business can't stop when somebody forgets a name badge, and your average person will know who the person is. I would not be able to do that, and the result

[@glennalperin]

There is a difference between being alone and being lonely. There is a difference between isolation and solitude. These are not simply linguistic chocies of words. They are vastly different emotional states of mind. Nonetheless, in the moment one experiences them, it is not always obvious which a person is experiencing. Looking back over my life, I can now say with certainty that some times I felt I was alone I was truly lonely. Hoewver, it served a useful purpose for me.

[@glennalperin]

A stranger would be a person not known to the child. My understanding, having read the document, is that "people known and trusted" would include family members, friends of the family, friends of the child, and people who might have a close relationship with the child, like a babysitter or teacher or counselor, for example.

[@glennalperin]

people achieve academic success. Although I can perform 90% of the work involved in being an administrative assistant, the 10% I can not perform, being able to recognize people and direct them to meet the appropriate people, makes that occupation rather unreachable for me. There are many examples I could give with similar outcomes. I don't like to dwell on the negative, but I also can not deny that my limitations do effect the choices I have.

[@glennalperin]

I recently spoke to a gentleman about a situation where he believed that a medical professional was acting quite less than professionally with him in, as you describe, a voyeuristic way. Of course, a lawsuit is not the only thing such people need worry about. They also should worry about whether or not they will be able to continue to practice medicine if they participate in such acts of unprofessionalism.

[@bodryn]

You might find it useful to read books and articles by the late Helen Keller, who was both deaf and blind from birth. A special lady (name?) became her teacher and brought her into communication with the world.

[@glennalperin]

and the answer was often a resounding, "NO!" Similarly, some work has been done which examines the ability to regain functioning of eyes through surgery, and the ethical questions, not to mention the cognitive ones, have not yet adequately been resolved. (The movie "At First Sight" which came out in 1999 provides a good example of this and was based loosely on a real life situation.)

[@glennalperin]

I think there is a difference between people with a condition which difinitively negatively effects their physical and/or mental well-being, and those which function more as a significant annoyance. Living with prosopagnosia is definitely challenging, and has potential to be dangerous, but such potentials are not the same as those people facing a variety of irreversible physical and cognitive ailments which progressively get worse.

[@glennalperin]

These are fair points and good questions. Unfortunately, I lack the professional expertise to answer them in any coherent manner or with any degree of actual knowledge. Maybe somebody else can. I hope they do as I would be very interested in what tehy have to say about it.

[@elgmalone]

... the picture to people who may have seen him. Honestly I think that should be a habit for every parent, faceblind or not. I did recently have an issue however, at a party I took my son too. This is a story I shared with Glenn when it happened because I knew he would understand. Normally I wouldn't share this kind of thing out in the open, but I think it's the only way I can get someone like you to really understand the issue. The party was at a place here call Travel Town and it was a ...

[@glennalperin]

As for the "Matrix" films, I really enjoyed them because of their plot content, and in general, I found the different characters easy enough to differentiate one from the other. Typically, such a combination makes movies enjoyable for me. If you didn't like it, thats okay too. We each can like different things.

[@glennalperin]

Not quite, but I can see how you think it might be. Let me see if I can explain better for you. Work is a specific location. When I worked in retail, I got to the point I could recognize a few of the people I worked with when they were working with me, even sometimes when they were not wearing name badges. However, I never expected to see any of these people outside of work. Work was where I knew them. In the context of an office environment, which is different from retail, one must

[@glennalperin]

Now, to answer your question, I am aware of people who use all kinds of pnemonic devices to help them remember, and for many people, it also helps them remember faces. Some people with prosopagnosia are skilled enough at discerning facial differences, even if they can't actually recognize faces, to come up with lists of physical traits which may reflect specific individuals. I think, however, that most people with prosopagnosia would find such a task too cumbersome and complex to make use of.

[@elgmalone]

... when I went into the military I took the test for nuclear physics. I'm a good test taker but a slow one so because it was a timed test I only got 2/3 rds of the way through it and yet only came 3 correct answers short of a passing score.

[@glennalperin]

However, we all make choices based upon what seems to make sense to us in the moment, and that was my choice. If I could have done things differently, would I? I am not certain. In this case, my choice served a very specific and valid goal of mine. That goal, preserving my personal safety, hasn't changed, but as an adult, I have far more opportunities and choices available to me for how to handle stressful situations which I never had as a child.

[@elgmalone]

What Glenn said is that he no doesn't both looking at people's faces. That doesn't mean he doesn't try to recognize people. He just uses other means to do so, like all faceblind people do. I don't know Glenn's strong points so I don't know his specific methods. Personally I use my hearing first. I also use people's hair. Most people dismiss it but hair tectures amoung people can vary greatly. Also style of dress, height, body type, all help. ...

[@glennalperin]

You asked one more important question, PaulaQueenie. Where does one tend to see these various conditions? This may not be such a straighforward question to answer. Recall that previously, there were only "200 cases of prosopagnosia in the world", but that was only because those were the only people who had been studied by cognitive scientists. I suspect that, due to a variety of factors, many conditions like prosopagnosia, are far more prevalent than most people think.

[@glennalperin]

As I indicated before, these problems are much more complicated than they appear at the outset. I've researched many of these jobs and have to be able to read between the lines on job descriptions to figureout what jobs will and will not be suitable to me. I've spent a lot of time doing this and consider myself pretty good at it at this point. Your confidence in my is nice, but I don't want to be a liability to any company who might hire me, and I will refuse any job which I think I can't do.

[@somelikeithotmel]

Could face blindness be related to body dysmorphia? I've known a couple of face blind people whom people think are good looking, who've had surgery.

[@bodryn]

It occurs to me to think perhaps there could be something a person could wear (a button?) so that people would recognize that we are people with this special condition and aren't intentionally snubbing others, etc. I realize I have partial prosopagnosia because there are some people I just don't recognize, yet my wife does. To me, it is certainly better to have this problem than some of the problems people have to live with.

[@elgmalone]

... recognition is a brain function that is located in the right temporal lobe in the part of the brain known as the fusiform face area. Yours works and functions and you can't shut yours off so you don't understand how someone else could have one that doesn't function. But the fact is how we see and recognize anything is are all attributed to different brain functions. A long time ago I remember reading a study that was done with kittens where they were raised in an environment where ...

[@glennalperin]

797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time studied resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day. 203,900 children were the victims of family abductions. 58,200 children were the victims of non-family abductions.

[@elgmalone]

@realinterrobang That's me too. And most voices don't sound alike.

[@nimph909]

Wow epic youtube argument. Who would of thought prosopagnosia would inspire such a duel.

[@glennalperin]

It was not stated in the document I got teh information from. It may be stated in the report which that document cited (with the citation i gave you above). I have not verified the original source material, but I do trust it sufficiently to not doubt it. However, i can not answer your questions here because I have not read the original report.

[@elgmalone]

...trains and tracks inside that children were allowed to play with. I looked inside and saw several of the boys playing with trains but couldn't tell if my son was one of them or not. They were all wearing Thomas the Train shirts and wearing the conductor hats. I walked out and continued my search when another mother said "Are you looking for your son, I saw him in the gift shop." I looked back inside the gift shop and called for him and sure enough he was with the group of kids. ...

[@glennalperin]

or social mistake, it probably would be too late. For this reason, I very much enjoyed working as a cashier in retail for a number of years where face recognition is not an essential component of the job but being quick and having a pleasant demeanor and being professional wioth customers was more important. I am sure there were regulars who came to the store, but they respected the work I did more than whether I recognized them or not.

[@glennalperin]

My point was that I have no idea who that person is, whether I know them well, or where I know them from. I have never watched "A Brilliant Mind" though I recall it being mentioned to me before as a movie I might enjoy. Developing coping strategies is a necessary component of the life of any person with a disability, but as I have discovered, some coping strategies are maladative. (Isolation was my friend, really.) Some things I did as a child simply don't work as an adult.