Face Blindness?

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I have it, despite having a decent visual memory. I read somewhere that people on the spectrum tend to focus more on things that NTs consider just "background", rather than focusing on people, so maybe that's why?

If I haven't seen you for at least a year and you wave to me or something, I can guarantee that I will not reconise you

I was intrigued when I read about this for the first time last year. I don't remember having difficulty recognising faces as a child, then age14 I spent 6 months in hospital, 3 months of which I was held in isolation. When I came out I found it very hard to recognise faces. Two girls from my school class stopped to chat to me, they knew me very well, asked about all my family, but I had no idea who they were. I had no concept that it was a special problem, and couldn't figure out what was going on. I do things like try to write down what people look like, what colour their eyes, I try to memorise a verbal description of the face. Yet it still seems to me that I mistake people for others more often than other people do. I say hallo to complete strangers or blank out work colleagues. I have no ability to visualise in my mind the faces even of my husband, my mother or my daughter. When my daughter was born I remember that her face was lavender and gradually suffused with pink, I could not take my eyes off her for months. But I cannot bring an image of her face into my mind from memory.

BUT

when I take that test, I get a very good result, as if I am very good at remembering faces.

I've had that thing where you think two people are one. At a place where I used to work, a guy asked me to solder a few components on to several gadgets. Later on, he came back into the room, and I said, "Your gadgets are ready." He had no clue what I was talking about, because it wasn't him. Eventually I realized there were two people. Side by side, they had different faces, but apart, I just never knew which was which. I had to put a note on my desk, saying something like, "J=blue", for "John is the one with blue eyes."

At that same workplace, on my very first day, I was being taken around and introduced to people. One guy came up to us, and I put out my hand and introduced myself. He said, "Yeah, I know, I was one of the people who interviewed you."

I see a lot of people when I go to pick up my son from school. I almost never talk to anyone, though. I've had a few people talk to me (like one person a year), but then later on, if I see someone, I'm not sure if it's the same person, so I'm not sure how to greet them.

Then again, there are other faces that I can see in my mind very clearly even though I haven't seen them in years.

I couldn't practice face recognition before this year.
Last year I was in High School, and the school had strict uniform rules.
So, I was recognising everyone from their uniforms in this way "You should be from our school so you are ....."

But this year things have changed, because of not wearing uniforms
A Person: Hello!
hiddenname:Have I seen you before?

That person is my lab peer. Every week we work together.
But he is not lab when he says hello to me, and he changed his clotes after the day in lab.

Novadays I am working on things pixel by pixel, so I can recognise every detail on an object, and easily identify differences.
But, when it comes comes to people (especially their faces) I can't differ many people and identify them.
That may be because of I can't deeply look into people's faces.

Did anyone see this discussed on the Rachael Ray show yesterday? Great segment!! Even one of the show's producers was discovered to be face blind! It was wonderful - and really gave me the courage to start discussing it with people. I always hide it and the woman on the show has had great results with just telling people up front that she may not remember them the next time she sees them.

This led to several big discussions with family members last night and I realized two things I didn't clearly understand before:

1 - I don't recognize my own face

The woman on the show made that comment, said if she sees her whole body and head (like passing in a window on the street) then she knows it's her, but if it's only her face she doesn't recognize it. I have had that experience and my daughter said I mention to her all the time that I'm "shocked" at how I look. She has lots of mirrors in her house, I have a tiny one over the sink just for functionality - putting in contact lenses, etc. When I"m at her house I'm always shocked that's me and I guess I say so all the time (I didn't notice that)

2 - I don't seem to have as large a problem with tv characters or people in photos because they're 2 dimensional. I also have a near photographic memory for objects, which conflicts with the non-memory for faces.

My daughter asked if I could picture her face now if I tried (she was on the phone at the time and not in front of me) and I could. I could also picture other family members but then I realized I was bringing up images of their PHOTOS from my memory. I cannot picture their actual faces - I can see an image of a PHOTO I saw.

This is very interesting. It would seem that if I could photograph everyone I meet and then take a good look at the photo while saying their name, I'd have it in my memory from then on.

Of course if they change their clothes or hair all bets may be off..... glasses, hats, all those kinds of things really screw up any recognition.

I haven't read this book yet but I have it on hold at my library, The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks goes over this topic as well as a few others. The Radio lab podcast has had at least two episodes covering face blindness, the last one I heard was a funny and sad tale of a face blind relationship.

Once I went up to someone and started talking to him and then realized (as a result of his complete bewilderment) that it was a person I didn't even know but that his hair looked similar to the hair of someone I knew (and he was in the same context as I usually saw that person). Other people tell me that these two men that I confused do not look similar at all.

I also have trouble recognizing people in movies and sometimes confuse the characters, unless I'm already very familiar with the actors from previous movies and their appearance is not too different. Actually, I had this problem a lot worse when I was a child. Each time a character would change his outfit, I would think it was a new person.

I don't recognize people out of context, or I can eventually but it usually takes me several minutes of trying to remember and then I still can't remember their names.

So ... I thought everyone had this???

The test I took said I had it, probably, but I really don't think I do.

I took the face blindness quiz and scored quite high for not having it, but that's so wrong.

When I see my cousins I never recognize them. They sit there saying "don't you remember me?" and I do, I remember how their voice sounded but I don't know there faces. When I saw my teachers outside of school I wouldn't recognize them, even the teachers I liked very much. They would be wearing different clothes and it was just not the same face to me.

I also get actors wrong tons of times. There is one actor that to me looks like 5 other actors. So when I see something I always think, well it must be him, but it never is.

In my high school I swear I saw at least 50 people from my old school; however, there was in fact only 1 person from my old school, tons of people just looked the same.

[img]My%20daughter%20asked%20if%20I%20could%20picture%20her%20face%20now%20if%20I%20tried%20(she%20was%20on%20the%20phone%20at%20the%20time%20and%20not%20in%20front%20of%20me)%20and%20I%20could.%20I%20could%20also%20picture%20other%20family%20members%20but%20then%20I%20realized%20I%20was%20bringing%20up%20images%20of%20their%20PHOTOS%20from%20my%20memory.%20I%20cannot%20picture%20their%20actual%20faces%20-%20I%20can%20see%20an%20image%20of%20a%20PHOTO%20I%20saw.[/img]

This is how I remember some faces. When I try to draw up someones face I think of pictures.

I always worry that I would be horrible if I ever got robbed or worse and had to describe the perp. so they could draw a face.

I can't remember how my parents' faces look. But I vividly remember clothes that they've worn and haircuts that they've had. Is that face blindness, then?

Sounds familiar. I recognize my own face, but have a lot of trouble picturing it in my mind's eye. With people important to me, I tend to study their faces in a desperate attempt to remember them well enough to be able to visualize later, but I can never manage enough detail and the memory fades quickly.

I am much better at visualizing a person based on their photo, but that has its drawbacks as well. A photo is unchanging, may be "good" or "bad," not showing the whole story--it only shows a snapshot of what the person looked like at that moment from that angle in that light. It's entirely possible for me to look at multiple pictures of a single individual and not be able to recognize them as the same person, unless I already know that they are.

And I don't like it when someone changes their hair or glasses or some such. They look like a different person to me.

I don't have face blindness. I just have slightly poor eyesight (but not poor enough to have to wear glasses to walk around). If I see somebody more than about 8 to 10 feet away from me, I can't see their face or exact hairstyle. can see what clothes they are wearing and the colours, but their face is just a blur. But if they are less than about 8 feet away from me and I spot them in time, I can see who they are straight away.

But the problem is, I don't look at people, so obviously I don't see them. I look down, or straight ahead, trying my hardest to block everyone out, otherwise I would become really socially phobic. That is why I don't see people I know, and just whip past them without knowing they're there. The reason why I don't look at people in general in the street is because if I look at them they look at me back, and I don't like people looking at me, unless I know them. When I talk to my social worker about my fear of others looking at me, she always says, ''don't look at them then,'' but it's not as simple as that because if I don't look at other people then how will I ever be the one to spot someone who I know first, without them having to call my name after I've walked by them obliviously? But if I do look at people in the street, they will look at me and I always get self-conscious in case they're looking at me because I somehow look stupid, but if I don't look at them I won't see people who I know, and then they might consider me unfriendly..... ohh, it's all a vicious circle, which is what causes anxiety for me when I'm out in public.