Faces

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Hello! Can someone say what the issue for AS people is with faces? I have read a lot about mostly children and problems with recognising faces and expressions, but dont have a clear picture about it. I would like to hear from adults with AS or suspected AS please. I am in my thirties and have a problem with certain people at work. I just dont recognose them until the last moment when I should have already said 'Hi' instead of looking at them blankly. Its very odd. I see some kind of face but its very indistinct until suddenly the person is there. Only happens with some, who I actually know well enough. It would be great to hear some perspectives on the faces thing if thats ok, thanks.

I think it's mostly (though I may be incorrect) to do with reading the non-verbal cues/facial expression.

I really have no idea why it happens. I can work with people many times and still do this. It's an odd feeling, as if meeting them for the first time again (which really offends them) or only having a vague feeling that I know them but can't remember where. This is particular bad if you do it to people you've dated, which I have in the past. They don't take it well at all. At work it can be interpreted as you think you are too good for them or you are just rude.

It's as if my mind just won't put the image of their face and who they are together into a cohesive package. Either I have two packages for the same person (the personality and the face) or only one (the personality). It also seems random for me. Some people I remember and some I don't. I don't whether this is like my sense of taste or not. I can't taste most things, so I really only remember foods with extremely strong, spicy flavors (say hot red curry chicken for example). Maybe it's like that and if the person has an extremely strong personality and striking face, I will remember.

I also do something where I register parts of a face, rather than a whole. I'll notice their nose or their eyebrows, but not the entire face. It's strange and annoying. I wish I could find a way to recognize the whole face every time.

Has a person reminded you of someone else, so you mentally obliterate their face and name with this other person? I've done that as well and it's taken me sometimes years to break that. It's like I know who they are, but that other person's name comes out of my mouth every time and I am seeing their face in my head.

Very, very odd. It has to be a wiring issue.

I don't know if this happens to anybody else but when i meet someone for the first time it's as if i have seen them before when actually i haven't.

I think there face gets stored as a memory.

Hi,

I read the following on www.danda.org.uk (in FAQ section) regarding people with AS:

"Many of them are partially face-blind (have a problem remembering faces). They have to invest a lot of energy in understanding interactions and would often need to consciously plan their social behaviour in advance, including when they walk down a busy pedestrian road, and have to avoid running into people."

There is more info about face blindness on:
http://www.prosopagnosia.com/

I have AS and experience 'mild' face-blindness. I have problems recognising people - even people that I have know for a long time or am close to.

ummm i have had a lifelong difficulty with recognising peoples faces..it must be a wiring thing..i need to stop telling people who I see over and over again but don't recognise that I have trouble recognising people because I am told it is "bad social skills"..I guess I should instead pretend like i recognise them, which makes me feel uncomfortable because I don't like pretending with people.

Anyway..there are quite a few people who I automaticly recognise...but there are lots who I just can't place...even though they seem like they know me...it is very frustrating..
also all the bands who play multiple times at my venue..expect me to remember them from one time to the next...I feel awful...but I can seldom remember them the next time I see them.

It is the same with names..i can go for years being acquaintanced with someone (and yes be able to recognise them) but not know what their name is.

Whenever I try to fake my way through knowing them, I am always called on it and feel even worse. I've found the best way for me to deal with it is just to say, "I'm so sorry, I can't remember your name." For some reason, NTs will almost always tell you more than their name at this point. They know you feel badly so they try to help you out instead of feeling offended by you and walking away angry. I only try to explain it if it keeps happening. Usually I'll just say they remind me of someone else so much that my mind automatically thinks of that person and causes a brain blip. They seem to understand that and just laugh about it. They'll say something like, "Oh! They must have left quite an impression on you!" While it's not always true, I find this is less hurtful to them than just saying outright that I can't remember them from one time to the next.


I do tend to recognize people if I work with them enough on projects. I guess my brain associates their face to a concrete thing - the project - and then I'm okay.


One thing I have noticed that most NTs do, but I do not. They notice details of face and I do not. They could say if the person had flecks of brown in their eyes. They can say if they have a mole and where it is. They can say if the nose is slightly crooked and the lips are fuller. I don't notice these things and I think they are what helps most NTs to distinguish the faces from one another. I've tried to look at people like works of art to do this as well, but then I stare and it unnerves them. I'm still trying to figure out a good solution.

I am incredibly horrible when it comes to faces. What's worse, I'm just as bad as names. Like I'll know someone for years even and I won't be able to recognize them, even my best friend. And when I'm telling on someone for harrassing me, I can't remember their name or their face so they get away with it. Now if there's a certain characterisitic (like a gigantic nose), it's easy to remember but otherwise it's impossible.

i agree with basement.
us aspies, could, for example, would have trouble telling if someone was mad if they didn't say anything.
if only this was a cartoon world where we sounded like tea pots when we were mad.
it would be a much better world (<--joke)

I use to have difficulty remembering faces. But then I started taking minor features and remembering them like the color of their hair fo example and gradually overtime pieced the parts together like a puzzle
(i like puzzles very much) I was able to recognize the person at a glance.

Hi,

i wish i could post a little more. I just find it so amazing that the more i read, the more i am convinced i have AS. You are all the same as i am. I have the same problem with faces. I know it and i work hard to overcome that issue, anyway i have to see people at least ten times before i get used to them, so i can recognize them.

The same goes with places, i frequently get lost at my advisor´s office. Luckily there´s signs on the doors, so i only have to read her name in order to know wht door to knock. I hope they don´t take it away.

is that a good thing?

I read somewhere that, in people with AS and/or “face-blindness”, the brain actually processes faces in the same area that it processes objects. NT brains process faces in a special, designated “face-processing” region. So I suppose, to us, a face is no different than a tree or piece of furniture. If you see the same tree enough times, you might start to recognize it. It’s the same with us for faces.

My husband can’t remember names to save his life, but he can recognize someone he met once 20 years ago. Whereas I probably wouldn’t recognize my own mother in a crowd unless I was specifically looking for her.

This can be quite embarrassing, of course. One day while I was at work, I was walking past the reception desk and there was a woman standing there - I assumed she was a customer so I kept walking. But I felt her eyes on me so I sort of glanced back at her, she was smiling warmly and then she said “hi!” Thinking this was just a friendly customer, I smiled politely and said “hi” back, and barely slowed down. But she was still looking at me, and then she said, “how are you?” [Wow, I thought, REALLY friendly customer!] Still not getting it, I thought I should probably at least indulge the friendly customer, so I finally slowed and said, “I’m fine, how are you?”. As she replied, it was then that I noticed that she had a little boy with her – and even HE was sort of shyly smiling at me. At that moment it hit me like a ton of bricks – this was one of my co-workers’ wife and son, with whom my husband and I had gone out to dinner with once, and had even gone to their house for drinks the previous Christmas! My surprise/astonishment/I’m-such-an-idiot must have registered on my face because she chuckled a little bit. I don’t remember what I said next, but I do remember that I thought MUCH later that I should have made up something about being busy and apologized for not recognizing her, so I certainly didn’t do anything that graceful at the time!

I mean, that can pretty much happen to anybody, but it happens to me almost on a regular basis.

I notice I study faces intently... and memorize features very well. I am not sure if this is because I am an artist and I have trained myself to do this over the years, but even though I can picture the person in my head, I still have a hard time recognizing them on the street.

This can produce the MOST embarrassing situations... I've started talking to someone about something that happened to someone else ! !! They look at me like I'm daft. So now I do my best to chat a bit until they say something I can 'cue in' on. I used to deny this problem as I saw this question on psychological questionaires, and thought it was a symptom of insanity. Glad to hear it's a problem we all share. Makes me wonder, though ... If we had an ASpie convention, would we go 'round introducing ourselves to each other over and over ???

I can't even recognize my own family. I'm not a mom, I wonder how that would go with children! Anyway, I don't recognize my parents or my sibs. They'll live with that. The problem is when I walk right past my boss without knowing it's him. Or stare at him for a bit, decide I can't figure out who that might be, and *then* walk right by him. I try not to look at people at all, it makes so much trouble.

You know what would be funny? Two faceblind people taking a chance that they've met before, but they haven't. It would be sort of Monty Python.