I don't understand the concept of face blindness

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mr_bigmouth_502
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28 Dec 2014, 7:43 pm

I can recognize people's faces just fine, and I tend to remember faces much better than I remember names, though sometimes I do get kind of confused when I see two different people who have similar faces. It actually affects me enough that if I've had a negative experience with someone, and I see someone else with a similar face, I'll start tensing up around them, even if they're a completely different person.

What is "face blindness"? Is it an inability to associate faces with who they belong to? Is it an inability to remember faces? Is it an inability to differentiate between different faces? It's a confounding concept for me, because I can remember faces just fine despite being diagnosed on the spectrum. :?



wozeree
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28 Dec 2014, 8:44 pm

Just be glad you don't have it! Can't recognize people I was introduced to. Have to get to know them by cheating methods like memorizing where they sit. If I saw them outside the place I normally see them, even after getting to know them, wouldn't know who they were. It kind of makes sense becuase since we can't recognize their faces, we memorize "things about them." But outside of where you know them from, those things might be different (including the background where they are standing). My head is a mess!



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28 Dec 2014, 9:06 pm

To me, everyone's face looks very similar. I find it hard to distinguish between them. I also find it hard to fix faces in my memory.


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btbnnyr
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28 Dec 2014, 9:14 pm

Lack of recognition of people from their face.
Each face looks different, but who are they, or are they the person I am looking for or not?
In eberryday life, my facial recognition seems mildly impaired, and much more so when I was little.
In lab, I always score near perfect on face memory tests.


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Waterfalls
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28 Dec 2014, 9:25 pm

As Wozaree wrote, be glad you don't have it. Not everyone on the spectrum does, and I believe you can have it and not be on the spectrum.

It means you need to recognize people by hair, clothing, where they sit, how they speak, even facial expressions maybe, not facial features.

I recognize people because they react to me, or move in familiar ways. I recognize voices. But people's faces are hard. Many times I don't recognize the woman looking back at me through the mirror.



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28 Dec 2014, 10:17 pm

I'm terrible at remembering people's names. I seem to be only good at remembering the odd or foreign-sounding names of fictional characters like in The Chronicles of Narnia or The Hobbit. But I'm very good at recognizing people's faces even if I haven't seen them for years. This is embarrassing because sometimes I'll be out somewhere and someone will come up to me and say hi and start talking away and they look familiar but I cannot remember their name at all. They never seem to forget my name, though.



izzeme
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29 Dec 2014, 1:59 am

To me, it means that i cannot recognize a faces unique characteristics. It is as if everyone is wearing one of those venetian carnacal masks Image.
Not only that, but a different one every time i see them (which might be only minutes apart).
I need to use different identifiers; glasses, hairline, voice, general body shape, that type of things.
the better i know a person, the more identifiers i know, so the less i am affected by face-blindness, but i still cant recognise them in the street. I can even walk past my own mother and not realise it is her of I'm not looking for her



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29 Dec 2014, 2:10 am

Waterfalls wrote:
As Wozaree wrote, be glad you don't have it. Not everyone on the spectrum does, and I believe you can have it and not be on the spectrum.

It means you need to recognize people by hair, clothing, where they sit, how they speak, even facial expressions maybe, not facial features.

I recognize people because they react to me, or move in familiar ways. I recognize voices. But people's faces are hard. Many times I don't recognize the woman looking back at me through the mirror.


Agreed! To me I use hair clothes smell and context and voice to recognize people. If I'm at school I can recognize my teachers, if I'm in class, well classmates it is more complicated. But say I just spoke to my teacher 30 ,i mutes ago then we run I to eachother at a store and she says hi? I will not know who she is or be able to recognize her.

Face blindness is being unsure which of the people Whitney medium length brown hair is your mom so you try to remember what she wor that day because you got split up,

It is having a loved one cut their hair and feeling like they are a stranger now even when you know it's them because you can't recognize hem

I'm not sure what it is I don't seem but it's something important or I could recognize Peop,e

Make following a movie hard too


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29 Dec 2014, 2:55 am

names I am nigh well hopeless at remembering until near the end. faces are just the tip of the iceberg, I don't remember the whole PERSON at all! I need thorough memory jogging until I remember a person I haven't seen for longer than a few days.



eggheadjr
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29 Dec 2014, 2:44 pm

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

What is "face blindness"?


Hey Mr Bigmouth,

Face blindness - I simply don't see it :lol:

It's the inability to discern another persons emotional state from their facial expression. In other words, you can't see that the other person is happy / sad / mad / calm from just looking at their face.

So, you see - we simply don't see it. :D


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auntblabby
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29 Dec 2014, 3:00 pm

face blindness is also the inability to recognize a face that is not often seen. other people recognize a face they haven't seen in a while but we generally don't.



mr_bigmouth_502
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30 Dec 2014, 1:45 am

eggheadjr wrote:
mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

What is "face blindness"?


Hey Mr Bigmouth,

Face blindness - I simply don't see it :lol:

It's the inability to discern another persons emotional state from their facial expression. In other words, you can't see that the other person is happy / sad / mad / calm from just looking at their face.

So, you see - we simply don't see it. :D


I'll admit, I have a hard time discerning what people's emotions are from their facial expressions, and I often find myself jumping to wild conclusions. Are NTs essentially able to read each other's minds or something?



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30 Dec 2014, 4:30 am

I've never had a problem with recognizing faces either. Now names or something like a cell phone number? That might take me a while.


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chagya
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30 Dec 2014, 4:38 am

I don't really even look directly at faces. If a person is directly in front of me I am able to look right past their face but still notice details about the rest of their features. I associate people by putting names together with their body type with just a vague image in my brain of the face. Like I am looking at a picture of a person with just a smear where the face should be.



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30 Dec 2014, 8:08 am

I believe it can be a combination of all of the above, or some of the above. Like with me, categories of people look alike (especially in television). There's a bunch of "the blonde girl", some of "the brunette girl", and a whole bunch of "the dark haired dude"..it's somewhat easier in real life because of different ages and body-types. Facial expressions elude me too, which has always made me feel that everyone else could read eachother's minds, like mentioned above. :)
And if it's someone I haven't seen in a few years (this has happened when I saw my own FAMILY members at funerals or weddings), I have to hear them talk before I can remember them. 8O


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30 Dec 2014, 8:36 am

I have a phenomenal memory for faces to the point that I'll remember people from way back by their faces but names, Forget It!! ! I'll remember them, recognize them (like in a shopping centre) and smile at them and they'll look at me like, "What the hell are you smiling at me for?"

However, if I see people I know well (like family) out of where I'm not used to seeing them, I won't see them. I had my ex-partner for many, many years and I don't know how many times she used to complain about the fact that she could be right in front of me and I wouldn't recognize her. I just never saw her.


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