Face-Blindness and following TV shows.

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As with many Aspies/Auties, I have a bit of face-blindness, but normally it's not so bad as to cause a problem. I can usually tell people apart on most TV shows due to there being non-facial distinctions (like hair styles, style of walking, voice, etc), and a limited number of characters that I have to follow. Well, recently my boyfriend has been trying to get me into the series Rome, and I am struggling to follow it. Many characters have similar haircuts, and the scenes cut to different people without warning (or even telling the viewer WHERE the scene is taking place!) There seem to be an overwhelming amount of characters and I don't seem able to catch most of their names. A few characters stick out, but there are a few women and a few men that I keep confusing for each other, making it very difficult to enjoy the show.

To make it worse, my boyfriend is making fun of me for it. He thinks it's HILARIOUS that I think two "very different" people look the same. He just burst out laughing earlier today because he imagined me being part of that old trope where a person and their evil counterpart are fighting, and I have to shoot the "fake" one... except it involved two characters from the show. I told him that it's not funny, it's a serious problem and his insensitivity isn't helping me find solutions. It's odd, because he normally doesn't act like this. My eccentricities either irritate him or endear him... he's never laughed at me over one before.

So I have two questions-

1) Does anyone have any advice for distinguishing characters? I'm not very used to these hour-long dramas with dozens of characters that I'm expected to pick up and follow without any sort of introductions. Like I said, I usually go by hair/voice/personality/walking style, etc., the same way I distinguish new people in real life. But none of those seem to help when it comes to this show. (The last episode had one woman wearing a wig! I had no idea who she was!) I really want to enjoy this historical drama, so I don't want to give up trying, nor do I want to waste hours watching when I'm just left confused.

2) How do I convince my boyfriend that this isn't funny? If I made fun of him for his dyslexia, I'd be such a bad guy. Yet, it's okay for him to laugh when I can't tell people apart? I know it's not best to ask for personal advice here, but I figure others have had to deal with this before, too.

Where it gives me the most trouble is if there are a number of people who are dressed the same. Shows with uniformed police officers are particularly bad. Also, outlaw gangs in some of the older western movies.

Another thing that gives me trouble is similar casts on similar shows. In particular, I sometimes confuse members of the different casts in the three New York Law and Order series.

I have difficulty with certain actors. I have only just got the hang of distinguishing Matt Damon from Leonardo De Caprio and still sometimes mix up John Cussack and Nicolas Cage. My wife likes to make fun of me for this also. In real life I have problems recognising people (even those I know well) if they are out of context such as an old uni friend starts working in our office or I bump into someone I work with in another city. A guy who I had been talking to loads the previous week had his long hair cut short and I exchanged awkward plesentries in the canteen without having any clue who I was speking to other that is was clearly someone who recognised me so I should know. It was like an hour later before I could figure it out.

It is interesting to know there are other people who get this problem and I think I have it quite mild by comparison to others.

As others have said if the characters are dressed the same or in uniforms, or if all the characters are of a similar age range. Sometimes I do not recognise actors/actresses (but more especially actresses) from one film to another, when I have seen previous films. I also get false familiarity - like I think it is person X but it isn't.

It's kind funny, bu tin real life, I seem to be better at distinguishing between women than men. That's not the case in movies or tv, though. I have no idea why.



I get that all the time. I suspect that there is some particularly feature that makes me think it is them even though they probably don't really look all that similar when considering all their features.

I just this minute realized that I may have a mild case of face-blindness. I can't tell people apart a lot of the time in historical costumes or uniforms on TV. The sisters on "Upstairs Downstairs" confuse me all the time, and all the servant girl characters on "Downton Abbey" look alike to me.

I didn't think I had it because I would recognize people I waited on years ago in my bookstore days, but now that I think of it, they had other striking characteristics about them, like an unusual voice or an extreme of height or lack of it, or they really deviated from the "norm" that I have of what a face should look like. Like one man with a really crooked back, a couple that had a huge difference in height so that from the back they looked like father and daughter and a guy who had a really strong New York accent and bright red hair. The closer someone gets to an "ideal" face for me, the less I can tell them apart just from the face.

for the record rome is based off a shakespearan play. The main problem with the show is that you need to have read it, to understand who is who.

Even nts find the show exceptionally hard to follow at first, as you enter half way threw an epic.

Anyhow the show is quite amazing, and like game of thrones is one of the few shows both aspies and nts can find truly stimulating.

Also its quite interesting how several characters have rather contemporary personality types.

Mark anthony is a sociopath.
Ceasar a narcissistic.
Augustus the emperor aspergian atleast in vocabulary.
titus pullo ADD
lucious verinus OCPD.

I used to be convinced I was face blind until I took one of those online tests that said I was average in that area. I realized the reason I often don't remember faces is because I don't look at them. If I am forced to look, then I can remember them. When I am talking, I don't look directly at most people. This is difficult particularly with people I am just meeting (AND see again) because I often forget that I am supposed to know them. Sometimes I try to look for certain features out of the corner of my eye, so I can recognize them the next time I see them (saves me from those awkward "ummm.....why is a stranger speaking to me?" moments). When I am watching TV, I don't have as much problem watching the characters since they are not staring at me. I still find that I don't focus on faces though (I took a test for some kind of study that proved this), so if two characters look similar, I often mistake them for each other. There is currently a show on in Canada where they are trying to find the lead girl in the Wizard of Oz play that will be in Toronto starting in December. Several of the girls have similar heights, hair styles/colours, facial features, etc, and I often mix them all up.

I dont have to much trouble with movies and tv because the characters typically always wear the same things or have a distinct look.

Whenever I have trouble keeping track of a large number of characters I find summaries of them online, detailing their personalities and role in the show (for example, TVTropes has a pretty thorough character sheet for Rome). It might be easier to follow if you watched it on your own, too, where you can rewind sections or pause to look up what's going on in a scene.

I look at hairstyle and clothing to identify some people.

I've watched Battlestar Galactica all the way through twice and up through the second season at least two more times. I saw Tricia Helfer on Supernatural and I couldn't figure out who she was, and thought she might have been Famke Janssen.

When I saw Prometheus, I thought Charlize Theron was actually Katee Sackhoff until I looked the movie up to find out for sure.

I managed to get Summer Glau and Amy Acker thoroughly confused twice on Dollhouse.

In the movie "Spider", Ralph Fiennes' character is psycotic and gets people mixed up. I did not realize different actors were playing the one character until I looked up the movie on Wikipedia.

I can sometimes tell them apart by their clothing, voices, hairstyles, or distinctive features. Otherwise... not really. Maybe that's part of why I don't really like TV.

I forgot to say I voted "sometimes."

One thing that catches me sometimes is if an actor changes hair and clothing in a TV show I'll still not recognize them. I remember once on Battlestar Galactica a character in a single scene switched from platinum blonde hair and a red dress to platinum blonde hair and nearly nude (but covered) to dirty blonde hair and sweatpants, and with the third switch I got confused as to who she was (Tricia Helfer/Head Six).

I remember this problem being much worse when I was younger. I know I had serious trouble telling people apart, like if there were two lead male actors in a film, I would lose track of which was which.

I do have a small case of face-blindness; when I'm just getting to know a group I easily mistake one for another, not only switching around names (id I remember them) but actually wondering which person is which. As get to interact more with them, that fades away.

In movies, I may sometimes confuse new actors if I haven't seem them becore. I remember years ago I saw a movie called "The Departed", and it confused the hell out of me because I thought Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon were the same person

I was watching Game of thrones. The only name I could remember was the character Sean Bean plays but that was only because I've seen him in lots of movies.