Prosopagnosia

[Ian H]

The only face I 'knew' but didn't recognise was Tony Blair.

Me too. I think it was a crap picture.

I'd have recognised a Steve Bell portrait of him.

[Ham]

(edited that front link, sorry!)

Curious if there's anything that can be done about it,  I doubt it. Over the years I've developed strategies to work with it, and most people who know me know about it, so I figger anyone I offend by ignoring will just have to deal with it.

[billplumtree]

42%, recognised 11 out of 26 I was familiar with.  That's rather better than I was expecting to do.

[Jurek]

You wanna deal with the Simon Legg approach?
'Here's Jurek. In the blue top. He will lead the ride as far as the half-way stop' Or something.
Suddenly, you have 80 - 100+ people who are your friends and know your name...
Work with that.

That's normal for me.  Everyone seems to know who I am before I even start.  Has been since school (where I started off at a disadvantage due to crap hearing and rapidly progressed to being memorably weird).

I have had cyclists accost  me on my commute and ask "Are you Jurek, of the Friday night rides?'
I have no idea, whatsoever, who they are.
I do my best to respond politely.

[Basil]

Out of 30 faces, you correctly identified 10.
You were familiar with 26 of the people in this test.

If we exclude the ones you were unfamiliar with, you got 38% correct.

Travolta and Williams. I knew who they were but I just couldn't recall their name.  I named films they were in and counted them as correct answers.

All but one of the rest I felt, "I know I recognise that person, but I have no idea who it is"

This is the problem in real life.  I see someone in the street.  I know I recognise them, but how well do I know them?  Is it an old acquaintance I haven't seen for years?  Is it one of the boy's mates dads?  Is it a bloke I pass on the stairs at work occasionally but don't know at all?   Or is it just someone who looks a bit like someone?
 How should I greet?  Too much for someone I don't really know makes me a weirdo,  too little for someone I'm supposed to know well will be a snub.

I was with my visiting BiL in Birmingham city centre.  Someone rushed up and greeted me enthusiastically.  Panic stricken, I introduced my BiL to 'my plumber'.  It was the husband of Mrs. B's best friend.  We'd had dinner only a week previously.  I think he was quite hurt. 

[barakta]

96% on faces I was familiar with. I didn't know the name of Robert deNiro even tho I recognised his face. I didn't know who 2 others were Ben Stiller and someone else.

The photos were shit and many were old but I found this very easy and in many cases names were harder to retrieve from brain.

I know I have excellent facial recognition and pretty good name recall.

[CrinklyLion]

I Couldn'tBA after the first few because of the 'I know the face but not the name' thing being annoying.  After a couple of 'that actor chap' answers and then the reveal of the name I figured that it was a bit pointless...

I suspect my facial recognition is probably fairly average.  My name remembering is nowhere near as good as it needs to be because after 10 years in multiple schools my Branes are FULL.

I do find these days that in audax circles I seem to be more recognised than recognising, but I think this is mostly to do with the fact that at/on events there are usually many many tired sweaty smelly people in lycra, but only one fat ginger bird with a bag full of cake...

[mrcharly-YHT]

Is there a similar syndrome for not being able to remember names?

I can often remember everything someone has said to me about themselves (but probably not describe their clothes). No way can I remember their name.

[TimC]

54%. The pictures were crap, and I often half-recognised them but couldn't name them. I CBA to put down what films I might have thought they were in, or something else circumstantial. By halfway through I'd lost interest.

[Ham]

As a result of answering a questionnaire, my stunning score has got me invited into a research program where I have the opportunity of talking to an expert in the field.

Might be a bit cold and wet this time of the year.

[simonp]

26/29.

It is a fairly US-centric test. One of the characters I recognised from his portrayal in a US TV cartoon series.

[DrMekon]

I know someone with this condition. It makes her quite unapproachable initially, as she does this scowling thing as she tries to work out who you are.

[Ham]

As it happens the more I think about it, the less sure I become. One of my strategies is to go with the name that instantly surfaces (if one does - actually not often) before I have a chance to think about it and revise, which has around a 30% success ratio.

The other day I was at an office I rarely go to for work. I bumped into one person (who I was working with, but not face to face) and I made a correct identification from their profile picture in just that way. Shortly after I had a long conversation with someone else "catching up on old times" when after five minutes I had to give in and ask who they were. It was someone I had worked alongside for about two years (in a physical not virtual environment).

[Legs]

When I taught Maths at an FE college, we'd have between 200 and 250 new faces and names to learn each September.  In the first session of the year, to introduce ourselves, I'd play Getting to Know You with them, along the lines of
"Hi, I'm Tim, and I like playing guitar <I mime playing guitar>"
"Hi, he's Tim <points at me>, and he likes playing guitar <mimes playing guitar>, my name's Rob and I like meeting da laydeez <pelvic thrusts, to my feigned disapproval>"
"Hi, he's Tim <points at me>, and he likes playing guitar <mimes playing guitar>, his name's Rob and he likes meeting da laydeez <pelvic thrusts>, my name's Sam and I like standing in the middle of fields <mimes standing in field>"
etc...

Because I'm nice I only got the students to introduce the 10 who'd come before them (i.e. the twelfth would start with Rob and the thirteenth with Sam).  I'd only allow two people in any one group to select the same activity as their chosen pastime (otherwise they'd all be playing on games consoles, playing football or shopping), and we got some REALLY funny ones over the years (those above are genuine).

I'd quite easily be able to reel off all 20-25 students in a group afterwards (and their activities), and I'd only need the occasional reminder in week 2 (the ridiculous timetabling meant that we only saw each group once a week, for 90 minutes!)

[Ham]

Those types of memory tricks just don't work. It's a bit like telling a colourblind person all they have to do to remember which is which is which is to put the red behind the green.

[LEE]

I imagine a great big Library, everything I learn I put on a specific shelf, in a specific book.

When I want to remember something I just need to go to the relevant section, the relevant shelf and look inside the appropriate book.

Now if only I could remember where I put the f***ing Library I'd have no problem remembering who the lead singer of that '90s band was.  Anyone remember who he/she was?

[clarion]

Those types of memory tricks just don't work. It's a bit like telling a colourblind person all they have to do to remember which is which is which is to put the red behind the green.

Precisely!  I have a poor memory for Important Stuffs (though am pretty good on trivia of all kinds), and have several times attended training courses, tried systems out of books, or online resources.  They Just Don't Work.  It's harder remembering a mnemonic than the information itself.  The people putting them forward, I note, are people who, in general, haven't had any significant memory problems.

[clarion]

My biggest problem was Ah! That's wotsisname...
They didn't have a box for that.  88% anyway.

As The Right Time so aptly put it, a game of 'Imoff', as in 'That's, er, you know, um, 'im off...'

[Kim]

Those types of memory tricks just don't work. It's a bit like telling a colourblind person all they have to do to remember which is which is which is to put the red behind the green.

...which is exactly the sort of thing colourblind people do all the time.  Maintaining a mental look-up table of "small grey rucksack is green" "blue plastic chopping board is purple" and so on aids communication with colour-oriented people, but is exactly zero use when you need to identify the colour of an unfamiliar object.

Similarly all the name-remembering tricks in the world won't help you when faced with a generic short-brown-haired man wearing unfamiliar clothes who appears to know you.

[barakta]

Prosopagnosia isn't "not remembering" faces, it's not being able to process and therefore "see" faces.

Sometimes that can mean being bad with names as a secondary effect "what's the point of remembering names if you can't attach them to faces" but the issue is cognitive and about not seeing faces.

Having run events with a guy who is very faceblind and seen the "hilarious" consequences of him speaking to X thinking they're Y I realise how disabling it can be for some people.  Now we know he's prosopagnosic he has better strategies for checking who people are before saying stuff and he will ask people he trusts to help him identify people or link names/faces/stuff.  We have mutual friends A and B a mixed-sex couple who had a baby - faceblind friend didn't realise A's baby and B's baby was the SAME baby for quite some time... But he still can't SEE the faces and if some of our colourful friends change their hair and don't have distinctive body language friend will need a retranslation.

If you want to read more about prosopagnosia Bill Choisser is still writing some excellent stuff at http://www.choisser.com/faceblind/ (Table of contents at the bottom).

*goes to read*

[Ningishzidda]

“As usual, to start this week’s quiz, its ‘The picture round’.”

“Where’s Emma? She reads Hello magazine.”
"Yeh, she knows all the celebs' faces, but can't read a roadsign."

[Ham]

As a result of answering a questionnaire, my stunning score has got me invited into a research program where I have the opportunity of talking to an expert in the field.

Might be a bit cold and wet this time of the year.

Rather sunny day, as it goes.

The Cambridge Face Memory Test:  44.44% (High is good)
The Cambridge Face Perception Test:  68.7% (Low is good)


These tests suggest that there is a severe impairment in your ability to perceive and memorise a new facial identity.
 

No shit

Interestingly it appears that there appears to be a link between prosopagnosia and autistic-like behaviour. Also, anecdotally, a high proportion of those attending the research with prosopognosia demonstrate above average language skills.

[Kim]

Interestingly it appears that there appears to be a link between prosopagnosia and autistic-like behaviour.

See also: Auditory processing disorder.

Also, anecdotally, a high proportion of those attending the research with prosopognosia demonstrate above average language skills.

Interesting.  I wonder if there's a cognitive styles element to that, with those inclined to thinking verbally being less equipped to compensate for an inability to see faces...

[Ham]

Not that it directly related but one of the tests flashed up 2 images on screen, and the task was to tell if they were identical or different. The images were either  faces or letters in a stylised cursive script, with a set of lines running through them cutting the letters or faces in half, outside of the lines would be a different face or letters. The task is to identify the similarity of the bit between the lines.
eg


4567   is the same as   7786
-----                  ------
1234                    1234
-----                  -----

4567   is different to  4567
-----                 ------
1234                    1235
-----                 ------

I found the words much harder than the faces, which I could respond to very quickly, the words slowed me down. Apparently common to the syndrome.


ETA as a kid I was rather good at Kim's game  - I could recall the scene as an image and identify items from that picture.

[Ham]

Resurrected to note a couple of recognition things that amused me.

Having followed the link to this page (from a POBI thread), I struggle to see a difference between the author's avatar picture and the main photo, aside from the length of hair. I suspect they are the same person.

I watched this blistering Rory Gallagher performance  and came to the conclusion that Rod De'Ath ( the drummer) was Tiermat otp, and Lou Martin (the keyboard player) was Rowlf from the Muppets. Of course, that last identification is 100% correct.