Prosopagnosia?

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I'm wondering how common this is among Aspies. I am utterly horrible at recognizing people from a distance, and even up close have difficulties at times. If the person is very familiar or distinctive-looking, then I usually have no problem, but if the person looks even vaguely similar to someone else, then I can't really tell who it is. I just noticed today that this occurs frequently with me.

I can't recognize any face at all, even my siblings. I'm terrific at voices, though. Prosopagnosia made a lot of enemies for me until I got a white cane from the Assn for the Blind. What a relief.

i'm not the best at recognizing most faces and voices also unless those faces and voices belong to people who were nasty to me, then I never forget.

Not me.

But "face blindness" Ive been told here on WP is often comorbid with ASD's. And apparently quite a number folks on WP have some degree of it. Including some with severe cases of it. We have had threads with folks telling crazy stories about it.

My ability to recognize faces seems to be a bit below average. I remember one time a few months ago when a rather good friend of mine who I hadn't seen in over a year greeted me in a store. At first I didn't recognize him, and after a few seconds it was largely his voice which gave his identity away. I have noticed that when I watch movies I am generally don't notice if characters from different movies are played by the same actor or actress while other people seem to be able to pick up on that much more easily. My mind was blown when I learned that Indiana Jones and Han Solo were both played by the same actor.

I'm pretty certain my ability with faces is below average but not in any means in the extreme of bad. I mean I can recognise actors, people I know, etc... but that's not to say I'm perfect - people with similar faces can confuse me a lot and most the time I'm not sure if I'm seeing someone I know or just someone who looks similar. How many times I think I recognise a face but it turns out to be someone completely different... And when someone's in a car and I'm outside, it seems enough of an obscuration that I cannot recognise them at all.

I've been made fun of and misled by people taking advantage of my inability to recognize faces. I've also had people feel insulted because I couldn't recognize them. I graduated from a small high school in a class of about 150, and I still couldn't identify everyone by the end of my senior year.

I am challenged in this regard. It makes me anxious to greet people because I am faking about whether I know them or not, and I don't want to be found out. I also have awful memory for names unless I've met them numerous times.

I once had "facial recognition" in a battery of tests, and scored in the average range. Which didn't seem right to me, because I know I have problems in this area. But I don't have much test anxiety, so maybe in real life, my social anxiety makes me worse at this challenge.

I make an effort to learn who the actors are in a film, such as looking up "full cast" on IMDB, so that I can recognize them in future. In this, as well as in social situations, the more time I have encountered a person, the surer I am that I know who they are.

I have trouble recognizing people if they change their appearance (e.g., their hair, or wear glasses) or if they are in a place that I would not normally see them, like my mom at the airport, or a co-worker at the grocery store.

I've walked right past my mom at the airport on several occasions, because it's not her "normal environment". I recognize "Mom in her house" not "Mom at the airport."

I've also not recognized co-workers who changed their hair or were wearing glasses. The other day, I walked into the lab where I work and wondered, "who is that lady sitting at my boss's desk, using her computer??" I was about to introduce myself (a bit forcefully, since she was messing about in my boss's computer!) when i caught myself just in time. It was my boss, with her hair in a ponytail, wearing glasses.

I used to have a co-worker who liked to change her hair about once a month--hair extensions, braids, dye jobs, twists, coils, up-puffs, short short. She did a beautiful job, but every time she did it, it would take me a few minutes to decide if she was my co-worker or a client. It was like she had a head transplant every time. Happily, she started wearing a diamond nose stud on a regular basis, which helped me recognize her.

I'm better at recognizing voices, so I try to wait until someone speaks before I ask if I know them.

I have this problem but I have a rare low vision disorder & my brain doesn't process things I do see well rite away sometimes.