Prosopagnosia - Face Blindness

Short film which gives a brief explanation of prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness. This condition can occur alongside autism occasionally. It has degrees of severity.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• prosopagnosia
• face
• blindness
• autism
• aspergers
• syndrome
• diagnosis
• social
• recognition

[PatJ61]

I don't see faces as blurry; I just don't recognize them. I'm a college professor. A student can talk to me after class, then come to my office minutes later, and I will have no idea who he or she is. I depend on voices and having people tell me who they are. Fortunately most of my students think this is interesting and accomodate my problem.

[LeComfortEagle]

I have learned to blend out ugly people, which now only allows me to recognize myself and 0,2% of the population.

[PatJ61]

@grewver1 Actually, that's not the case. I teach at a college where classes are usually around 20 students. And yes, I do get paid to know my students-- that's the joy of working at a small school. I know their voices; I know their stories; I know how they are doing in class-- once they tell me who they are. Unless their is something really unique about them such as blue hair or multiple piercings, I just don't see each face as that different from others of the same age, gender, etc.

[kurtywurty85]

That sucks :( what if you wanted to find someone you knew as a kid? You wouldn't be able to find them...well, based on their face. And could someone trick someone with prosopagnosia into thinking that they're someone else? I mean, if you don't remember John's face minutes after meeting him and then Mike wants to borrow your toaster so he tells you that he's John (in this scenario they have very similar voices) would you give him the toaster...believing that he's John?

[adiofir]

@QuanticChaos1000 Sound like you might have prosopamnesia, which I think I also have. I can see people's faces, but it takes me numerous encounters until I remember them. And when I do remember their faces I often confuse the names. I work in an office and I often have to ask the other secreteries who's the client. We have a new seceraty, after 4 months she remembered most of the clients, I stil can't remember most of their faces after 7 years! (and it's a small office(

[nbmblownZ]

I was be able to see everything else perfectly fine, except faces. This lasted about 5-6 hours, and slowly faded away.

[nbmblownZ]

A long time ago I was at a party and a few friends decided to do "extacy". I was drinking(this back in my partying days) and decided that I would join them. I took a large pill and after about 1 1/2 hours I started to feel something that i've never felt before. The pills we took were not extacy. I felt very very strange. One of the things I noticed was I lost all ability to see people's faces. No matter how hard I consentrated, I would see a dark blotch over anyone's face I looked at.

[grewver1]

@PatJ61 what a douche of course you will not recognizestudents faces.... you freaking probably teach about 300 people !!! you dont get paid to memorize faces..

[lanthasmj]

There are 5-10 different types and most people fit one or an other category, and there is very little difference between the people within the same category. I usually use clues like clothing or location (where I usually meet a person, ie work, school, a shop). Often people think I don't like them, because I walked right past them on the street without looking at them. :)

[QuanticChaos1000]

I see all the details of a persons face clear as day, I just don't retain that information too long,unless they have a very unique feature. But then there are some people who I have no problem at all recognizing for long periods of time.I've tried to explain this to my friends and family but they just don't get it, and I really hate it when people come up to me and expect me to know who they are without any clues,and I obviously rarely can figure out who they are. I also get really bad migraines

[kylehyde28]

@PatJ61 That's really interesting.

[PatJ61]

@kylehyde28 Exactly. I can tell very distinct people apart. For example a student with purple hair, multiple piercings, etc. But those who are similar, for example same color of hair and about the same age are fairly indistinguishable to me. You know what was interesting about your comment though was that I AM fairly good at telling animals apart. As a child I lived on a farm and could tell all the cows apart. I cand do the same with my golden retriever when he is around other goldens.