What is Face Blindness like for you?

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I'm an undergraduate Psychology major, and soon I'm giving a presentation on Face Blindness in Autism. I don't experience face blindness or proposagnosia myself, so I wanted to hear from those of you who do. If you don't mind me quoting you (completely anonymously, of course), please share experiences or put into your own words what face blindness is like for you. If you don't want me to repeat anything you've said but still want to participate in the discussion, just make a note and I won't bother anything you say :]

Hello-I'm a graduate in Psychology. Best of luck in your studies, I hope the following experiences will be helpful to your presentation;

Face blindness-let me first say is mortifying. Especially when you're working in sales. On more than one occasion I helped out a customer, they said they would return later on, and I would approach them saying "Hello! What brings you into ___ ___ today?" as if I never met them. They would look at me with confusion bordering on hostility, they thought it was rude that I did not remember them from the previous day. If I am lucky the customer would remind me and say something along the lines of "Oh, I'm sure you get a lot of customers, we spoke yesterday about ____?". If I am unlucky, they are outraged for my "lack of professionalism" and storm off to speak to the manager. A lot of people accuse me of being a "stuck up b***h" or "a total ditz".

As an undergrad it was hellish as well, I would have classmates try to speak to me after class on campus, and I would vaguely be able to recognize them. I can't really recognize acquaintances outside of the context I am used to seeing them in. Once again, accused of being "self centered" or "unapproachable". This would also happen with acquaintances from other social aspects of my life.

Working part time as a waitress was also beyond humiliating. I would go serve the food to people whom I had literally just spoken to no more than 15 minutes ago, and I would have difficulty locating the table along with who ordered what.

Needless to say I quit both my jobs after having a sensory meltdown. I didn't find out I had AS until recently, so at the time I had just assumed I was severely mentally ret*d (I mean that in the clinical sense, no deragatory meaning intended), or slow, or just extremely stressed and unable to pay attention to people.

Don't know if any of that helped, or if I was clear in my examples, but I hope it did.

I'm unfamiliar with specifics of this.

But if the previous post is any indication then, yes... walking into a room packed full of people like a lunch room. I will not be able to find someone even if they are 5 feet away from me sitting down. I have this issue and will look and stare but try to hide it the best I can. Even if I'm looking for five different faces I'm lost until they yell my name. I also can't recognize people for a few moments (usually) if they change their appearance. But I recognize people by their posture/the way they walk/type of clothing. So if they say "Hey, remember me!", I will be lost for a moment until I see the way their arm swings or they take a step. I also need to be familiar with people or I won't be able to recognize them as I'm not focused on their faces when I am around them.

I'm not sure if this qualifies as face blindness, but I find that once I do remember a face I rarely forget it (I often recognise old friends instantly after not seeing them for 5+ years). Having said that It does take me a lot longer to learn a face than most people. This can cause a lot of problems as I also work in retail.

Just last week I spent 4 hours training a new staff member. We were the only people working at the time and so it was 4 hrs of pretty constant social contact, but when she came into the store to buy something a few days later I had no clue who she was. At all.

I think a lot of cases of prosopagnosia (not proposagnosia) in Autism is caused or at least exacerbated by problems with eye contact etc. i.e. it's not so much a neurological inability to recognise faces but the behavioural habits of not actually looking at the face as carefully as NTs in the first place. That's just a theory though.

I have the opposite problem - recognizing peoples faces as distinctly familiar when I've never met them before in my life. It's not that bad but it happens every single day (unless I don't leave the house).

This sounds very familiar. I used to work as a bartender/waitress at a pub a while ago. I would take peoples order at the counter and bring them their food later, but I would have no idea what they looked like anymore. I only worked there for a month.

I also used to work in a pet supply store in a tiny town. On a good day we would have about 20 customers, and I could never recognize any of the regulars. I didn't even recognize my boss instantly for quite some time and would often greet her as a customer

I get alot of parcels delivered(I like online shopping ), and it is always the same guy who delivers them. He is always friendly and asks me about my kids etc. A couple of months ago I bought some firewood from a local in town, and when he brought it over I didn't realize it was the courier guy, and I treated him like a complete stranger

it's one of the reasons i am a hermit out in the woods away from most people.

I have trouble with this. My face-blindness isn't severe, but its weird.

Let me try to describe my mother to you: she has blonde hair which she calls red, green eyes, and freckles. But should I find someone else who fits that description, it would take me a while to identify her. Its kind of like I store information about people, but not images. It even happens with my girlfriend. I've never really discussed it before.

To survive, I've actually stopped looking at faces altogether. I'll almost always recognise someone I've seen recently, but not by their faces (sometimes by particular features of their face, like lip-shape, or eyebrows or something, but they don't seem to fall into the same category)

I recognize people if I'm expecting to see the person in that location. For example, when I go to my asperger's support group I recognize everyone there. But I don't recognize people if I'm seeing them in a location where I couldn't expect to see them (for example, one of my asperger friends in the supermarket)

I don't experience it as far as I'm aware.

(No help to the OP, of course.)

I don't have this, but my husband does to an extent. He seldom recognises people out of context. If we see someone from our cul-de-sac in a shop, he doesn't know them. He's fine with relatives, good friends and close colleagues.

Years ago, we used to watch Lois and Clark every week. One night we were watching a film and Teri Hatcher was in it (who played Lois and looked exactly the same as always). I said, 'I didn't realise she was going to be in it'. He said, 'Who is it?' I couldn't believe he didn't know and I gave him a few clues. He still never got it. That was when I started to realise he couldn't recognise faces. His bike chain broke yesterday and a driver stopped to ask if he could run him home (the driver knew him and where he lived). My husband doesn't have a clue who it was, only that he was driving a blue car. He couldn't even describe the guy to me, only that he was 'average'. He also told me that someone called Tracey had asked for me (someone I used to work with). Now, I know 2 Traceys, one with black shoulder length hair, the other has long light brown hair. He described her to me and I'm none the wiser as to which one he was talking about. But, we were at the theatre last night and I was quite impressed that he recognised one of the lead actresses. She's in a TV show we are avid fans of, but it would not have surprised me if he didn't know it was her.

Strangely, he doesn't think he has a big problem with this and thinks this is relatively normal. But, he doesn't even recognise that he monologues either.

Another psychology undergraduate here (great subject ). I don't seem to have prosopagnosia in the traditional sense, I've tried some online tests and only perform slightly below average. However as others have said out of context I'm useless, I'll literally walk up to and past someone unless they say hi, then I kind of do a double take and quickly try to work out who they are (even happened with my sister a couple of times).

Even in context, in crowded places I can't work out who people are, for example in the computer lab if I'm not sure if it's my year in there or not, I'll look in and my mind goes blank (or I guess more accurately the exact opposite of blank, but that's harder to describe), I just can't recognise anyone, most of the time I hope for the best and walk in. It is a pain when I need to meet people for group work though, I just walk to the meeting place and hope someone notices me (happened this week actually, but no-one said hi so I waited 15mins and left).

It's probably more to do with lack of eye contact, or not placing enough importance on faces, rather than some neurological impairment. Even when autistic people do look at faces, they don't seem to look at them in the same way as NTs (focus on mouth area rather than the traditional eyes-mouth triangle). Every now and then I'll force myself to actually look at someone's face and it's quite weird, it's like I'm seeing them for the first time (even with family members). I guess for whatever reason I don't normally remember details like that.

I don't have faceblindness. I only have difficulties spotting people because I don't look at people - I look down or away from anyone's faces (unless I know them). I have a fear of being looked at by others, so I look away so that I don't catch anyone looking at me. But it's not good when you end up walking straight past relatives and friends.

^^^ This.

But I've noticed that when people are at a greater distance and I do risk a look, I also have trouble recognizing them. Strangely, I don't have this problem with the faces of actors and celebrities. I guess it depends on my stress level. When I'm out and about, my social anxiety gets worse and I become somehow more autistic.

As others have mentioned I think problems recognizing people has a lot to do with not making eye contact. I dont make much eye contact so I recognize people by the way they walk, their body shape, hair color and their voice. Given time and a chance to observe a person, like being in a classroom and seeing the same professor for a semester, then I can learn the features of their face. But I still would use their physical attributes to recognize them.

i have mild prosapagnosia. it is difficult to describe. i recognize most people by their voices if they do not look distinct.
people faces mainly fit into a range of similar styles. if someone has a type of face that is common to a style, i can confuse faces of that style with each other.

there is something that i have not seen described with respect to prosapagnosia, and i am not sure it is relevant, but if i try to visually recall what people look like (even friends), my mental image is very poor.
even though i recognize my friends when i see them, i can only recall the basic elements of their face when i try to visually remember them. for example, i do not remember the color of anyone's eyes that i know, and i can not recall what their teeth look like. however i do remember the color of their hair.

people who have shaved heads or are bald are the most difficult for me to recognize. most bald people look the same to me. i guess that hairstyles are the most important visual cue i rely on to identify people. if someone changes their hairstyle, i am much more likely to not recognize them.

i can not tell asians apart mainly. if they are the same size and general shape, i can not distinguish them.


[edited by mod: black people] are similar. there was someone who was charged with some crime a few months ago who i thought was barrack obama until i turned the sound up and realized it was not. a classic example of this is that i thought the comedian "eddie murphy" was the same person who played "JJ" in "good times" for years.


saddam hussein looked generic, and i could easily confuse him with many people (eg. stalin).

i am not just talking about recognizing similarities between similar looking people. i am saying that my idea of similarities is quite broad. arnold swarzenegger looks similar to hugh laurie if i try to mentally recall both faces, but if i see them side by side, i can tell the difference of course.

when i go to shops, i do not really bother to look at people anyway, so i would not know if a different person served me every time i went to a shop.

my case is mild anyway, so i guess it is not representative of full scale prosopagnosia.