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anbuend
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25 Mar 2011, 3:25 pm

People might get confused about this thread because there's "faceblindness" which is prosopagnosia which is the inability to recognize a person by face, and then there's a totally separate issue of being unable to read faces. (And then there's something about whether looking at a face causes the "face area" in the brain to light up. Which it does, for nearly all autistic people. Studies that said that it didn't, were studies where they were testing autistic people without bothering to check whether the autistic people were looking at faces or something totally different! Talk about confusing.) Which are three distinct (although sometimes overlapping) issues.

I really don't know whether I "read" body language or facial expression or not. I know that I get a lot of highly accurate information about people based on things as simple as the way their foot hits the floor, the level of tension when they take something from my hand, things like that. But I kind of doubt I'm reading the same cues, in the same way, as nonautistic people do.


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draelynn
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25 Mar 2011, 3:49 pm

^^^ same here. I'm not 'face blind' by either definition. I read people in a very academic way - not intuitively. I'll catch all the small cues otehr people miss like a quick darting of the eyes or a silent sigh or a brief hesistation before answering a question with a forced smile and a noncommital yet cheerful answer. It's a very psychological/ profiling approach to social cues.

Being unable to intuitively read facial cues is the Aspie challenge and also the reason NT's are uncomfortable with Aspies - because flat expression doesn't give them enough intitutive knowledge about us - then what the hell is empathy for? If they can't read a face wouldn't the empathy help fill in some of those gaps?



DiscoSoup
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25 Mar 2011, 4:20 pm

I sometimes have face blindness. Most times I can recognize actors in other films before others do, but if a woman dyes her hair, forget it. It's really bad when it's Maggie Grace. Saw her in Lost and then Jane Austen Book Club and the end of Taken. Didn't recognize her at all, even when my wife offered hints. Also, Gillian Jacobs from Community. Didn't recognize her on Fringe or the Box.



SammichEater
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25 Mar 2011, 5:09 pm

There's just something about the human face that I have a hard time with. I had always suspected that I am somewhat face ret*d when I realized that I can draw just about anything but faces. I took a face blindness test and I got 49%, which definitely qualifies my as a member of the face blindness club. I'm sure I suck at reading facial emotions too. My emotional processing algorithm looks something like this:

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dunbots
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25 Mar 2011, 5:12 pm

I just realized that often, someone will look completely different to me, to the point of me not recognizing them. 8O For example, even my own mother, who I've known for my whole life, will look like a completely different person to me, depending on how she's dressed, how she has her hair, make-up, whatever. It seems I'm not good at associating different looks with the same person. Or something. :P



daydreamer84
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25 Mar 2011, 5:33 pm

I do have trouble recognizing faces(prosopagnosia) but this may also be part of my co morbid NVLD. I'm oddly very sensitive to my mom's emotions and sometimes I pick up emotions in other people as well. I can but when I looked at faces in my psychology book (that were expressing different emotions) I couldn't identify most of them....I couldn't get fearful, angry and surprised . I got happy and sad right. I think I pick up on tone of voice and other nonverbal cues more easily than facial expressions However on an online test of facial expression I scored better than average......but I took a really really long time to do it.....I don't think I was that systematic ............but I am definitely slower at processing social info than most people.



CockneyRebel
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25 Mar 2011, 5:48 pm

I don't have facial blindness.


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IvyMike
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25 Mar 2011, 5:57 pm

I do have trouble recognizing faces and facial expressions.



ocdgirl123
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25 Mar 2011, 6:47 pm

Despite what tests say, I don't have problems with facial expressions or recognizing people.


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IvyMike
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25 Mar 2011, 7:32 pm

ocdgirl123 wrote:
Despite what tests say, I don't have problems with facial expressions or recognizing people.


I used to think I was good at recognizing faces and expressions, but scoring below average on these tests for over 10 years (before I accepted I was autistic) helped me realize I was wrong. I kind of think you people are full of s**t or fooling yourselves just like I was if you truly are autistic.



Verdandi
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25 Mar 2011, 8:45 pm

I can recognize faces as familiar but I sometimes (often) am unable to connect the face to a name. And usually both hairstyle and voice play a big role in that recognition. I know with some people I don't know what their faces look like for weeks or months after I first meet them, but once I do, I can recognize them. I didn't think I had issues with this until I really started to pay attention and recalled my tendency to see similarities in faces that may not actually be there (I've had trouble distinguishing George Clooney and Tom Sizemore, as well as Eddie Izzard-with-facial-hair and Tim Curry).

That and my realization that I do rely on hair, voice, and social context a lot.

I am not sure how well I read faces.

When I take the tests I score in the average range for recognition and just below average for reading, but those aren't really like real life.