Slashdot Mirror
One in 50 of Us is Face Blind -- and Many Don't Even Realize (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Ever found yourself confronted by someone who seems to knows you, but you have no idea who they are? You could be suffering from prosopagnosia, a condition that new research shows affects more people in the UK than autism, yet largely goes undetected. Also known as face blindness, the condition makes those who have it -- including Brad Pitt and the late neuroscientist Oliver Sacks -- unable to recognise other people, and sometimes even themselves, by their face alone. It is believed to affect as many as one in 50 Britons. Dr Sarah Bate, an associate professor of psychology at Bournemouth University, is developing face-training programs to help those with face blindness learn management tools. She says many people with the condition go undiagnosed. Its impact can be severe if undetected.
Why would going to the dentist improve facial memory?
love is just extroverted narcissism
Exactly. Another made up malady. "No really, I thought it was YOU."
I've always been curious to know how people who are face-blind find other people attractive? As depicted in biology texts, they basically perceive faces as gray nondescript blurs. Do they have any attraction to faces at all, or what takes the place of this? It certainly opens the interesting notion of a group of people who are foreclosed from being as facially superficial as most people are...
It's not that they can't see the body part, but rather that the body part is not connected to identity.
A better analogy would be pictures of hands.
You could tell me if you thought a given hand was attractive / not-attractive, but could you identify people based on pictures of their hands (alone)?
Maybe, especially after some time and practice, but it certainly wouldn't ever be as easy as recognition by face.
I can finally show this article to my wife and she'll think I'm a little less crazy.
I recognize voice, gait and stance very well. I also have great recollect for floorplans and topography. Hair changes frequently enough to not be super helpful for me.
My 3rd grade art teacher gave the class a project to draw your own face and I broke down crying because I didn't understand how everyone else could start drawing from memory. The teacher gave me a mirror, but just looking away from the mirror was enough to forget what my face looked like. Luckily, this is also the teacher that eventually taught me to just draw the individual lines you see. I'm still a shit artist for anything not predominately geometric.