Form of face blindness

[Redglitter]

Does anyone else have this & how do you manage it.

I dont have faceblindness in as much as I recognise family & friends but otherwise I struggle

I have no idea who people are at work. I cant differentiate between most of the men on my shift. Rather embarrassingly I started talking to who I thought was the guy I'd sat beside for the duration of my 10 hour shift - it wasn't him.

I have people on other shifts & departments at work pass me in the corridor & say hello (name) & honestly you could offer me £1 mill and I couldn't tell you who it was.

I spend half my life on wiki or imdb when I'm watching TV working out who's who

It's becoming more & more of a struggle

I too struggle with this.
Once I've had a decent number of interactions with someone, I will start to remember them, but if I'm meeting a lot of different people all at once, forget it!
My top tip is to concentrate on befriending unusual -looking people, as their features will be more memorable .

My top tip is to concentrate on befriending unusual -looking people, as their features will be more memorable

Excellent idea 😂😂

I feel your pain. I’m adept at failing to give names. Until I’m forced and then I die a little inside (I can only remember once in the last five years, thankfully). I do openly admit it and claim support from DH and friends (DH knows to introduce himself if I’m standing there for more than 5 seconds as it means I’m stuck). It’s one of the few blessings about hot-desking (I can say ‘is so and so in today?’ far enough from where they’re likely to be sitting to get told something useful that allows me to find them!). I really really envy people who remember names.

Out of interest…do you have a mind’s eye. I don’t. I thought it was a figure of speech until I was well into my 30s. I can’t bring up a picture in my mind of anyone at all (or a blue triangle, for that matter). And have wondered if the two things are related.

I'm not totally face blind, but definitely have a degree of it. People out of context particularly throw me. If someone I know fairly well dyes their hair, I may well not recognise them. I have given up on films where two female characters of similar build who both have long blonde hair blended into one. Working for the NHS helps, because people wear name badges, though I try to avoid being caught looking at them.

I also struggle with names, or at least with attaching them to the right face. I have very limited mind's eye. Had to explain that one to a psychologist, who wanted me to picture a safe place as a grounding procedure. Had to bring in a photo to look at instead.

I am the same. And also can’t picture things in my mind. I would be terrible if I ever saw a crime or something as I just can’t recall/picture things I’ve seen.

the face blindness is particularly bad though and I have had some very embarrassing situations where I’ve spoken to the wrong person. I have no suggestions unfortunately. Weirdly I’m very good with voices, the way people walk or hold themselves, and the type of clothes people wear. I just can’t tell you their features!

Yes, it’s a condition that has a name, which will come to me in a second. I’m hopeless with actors, singers.

I worked with two women I couldn’t distinguish from each other, and I avoided saying their names for 5 years. Unfortunately, I come across as a bit unfriendly, but that’s because I try to avoid embarrassment. It’s getting worse with age.

Prosopagnosia

Good to know it's not just me. Seeing people out of context is something I struggle with too. Met my next door neighbour in a car park once. She called me by name. I said hello & when I got into my car my mum who was with me couldn't believe I has no clue who it was despite having lived next door to her for 5 years

Oddly enough my memory when it comes to past events is incredible I can remember every tiny detail of something that happened years ago.

My memory for past events is also quite poor, for books, films etc. I can imagine things visually, maybe a bit higgledy-piggeldy, Picasso-style. I’m in a client-facing role and I’d be lost without the computer notes to remind me who I’m speaking to.

Is it just faces? I'm OK with people I personally know, but when it comes to actors they can change their appearances so much that I often recognise them best from their voices.

Similarly, I can identify some people by how they walk without having to look at their faces. Would identifying people by other than their face work for you?

I struggle with actors-if they put a hat on I’m lost!

In my case, it is mostly faces I struggle with. But also if they have similar other traits. Eg the 2 colleagues I couldn’t distinguish between were both white, middle age, shoulder length hair, similar height and clothing. They worked in a different part of the building and I only saw them once a week or so, so I didn’t get to know them well. Then there was a colleague who lost weight and that threw me off as her body shape wasn’t distinguishable enough anymore. With everyone dressing quite conservatively, you have less to go on.

There must be some strategies to make this easier. How awful to think this is what dementia must be like, when simple things become confusing. Apologies if this is crass, it’s just something that crossed my mind.

Have you ever tried memory techniques?

Memory techniques are of limited use. There are 2 types of prosopagnosia, and only 1 is memory related.

In the apperceptive variant, facial structure is not dealt with properly by perceptual processing. We don't see the face in the first place - not the way most people do - so remembering what we didn’t see won't help us the next time we don't see it. The cause is still debated but a likely culprit is the part of the brain that recognises 'this is a face' and therefore brings in the correct, detailed recognition processing.

In the associative or amnestic variant the difficulty lies in accessing facial memories rather than seeing the face in the first place. But it's possible that may still be related to a problem with the bit of the brain that identifies something as a face, and therefore looks in the 'faces' memory cupboard, rather than it being a simple 'forgetting'.

Working on memory can help some situations - like going up to the bar to get a drink and not being able to find the people you were sitting with when you come back. If you remember the table location and who was wearing what you can rejoin the right group. But that's no help when you see the same people in the office next day, sitting at their desks wearing different clothes.

i have this - I can have an all day meeting with someone and then fail to recognise them the next day when I have to collect them from reception, it’s awful.

In my youth I thought I recognised a guy I’d spoken to a few times - he was sitting on his own in a cafe so I happily said hello, sat down and started chatting away. After a while I realised it couldn’t be him unless he’d changed his name and suddenly grown a brother so I’d just plonked myself down with a complete stranger - he must have thought I was super confident and/or chatting him up, but thankfully he never said “who the hell are you?!” (And I never actually confessed I’d thought he was someone else!)

No tips on how to improve it, sadly - I generally just walk around smiling and saying hello to everybody so as not to offend.

Brad Pitt reportedly has prosopagnosia.

I have some version of this, too. Pretty damn awkward in my previous job, which relied heavily on client relationships 😳 I could know someone really well when they were sitting at their desk or at a restaurant table, then completely blank them in the street. Awkward.

Like a PP, I'm quite good at recognising people by their general 'presence' including posture, gait, mannerisms &co. Can only do that if I knew them in appropriate situations (ie, not at a desk). I can eventually piece the whole person together but it takes a while, with embarrassing stops along the way!

But I came here to say ... men with beards FFS! Tall guy, maybe early thirties, could be younger, moderately fit, skinny trousers, THAT BEARD - oh, yes, I've seen him! About forty of him just now, actually. No, couldn't tell you which one I was talking to

Yes to the men with beards - they’re everywhere, all saming together!

I have hybrid working face blindness. I can have 300 calls with someone. Meet them in person I the corridor and I have 0 recognition.

Oh, good, then he won't mind that I can't differentiate between him, Chris Hemsworth, Leonardo de Caprio, Drew Van Acker and very likely some other bouffy-faced, blond actors with curvy smiles 😆

This is me, especially seeing people out of context.

It is so embarrassing. I can’t lock on facial features. I rely heavily on hairstyle and skin tone but if there’s two blonde women with bobs in the office, or two Asian men with similar haircuts or, in the case of my DD’s key workers years ago, two New Guinean women with afros, I am totally stuffed.

My own kids use a hairstyle swap app and I can’t recognise their faces in photos with a changed hairstyle.

My biggest tip is to mention it when being introduced, then people aren't surprised or offended when I blank them. I also include it in any team bio/ways of working docs. Working mostly remotely is great as I can see names, but it can be embarrassing when I go into the office!

Mine is very clearly related to face processing rather than memory - I score very well on tests where the same photo is reused but can see two different photos side by side and have no idea they're the same person. One of the classic tests is to test people on facial recognition with upside down faces - most people score much better with right way up faces but I scored exactly the same.

I also have partial aphantasia though that doesn't cause problems.

Yep, had this all my life and it has often made people frosty towards me.

Unless you are unusual looking in some way, then I won't recognise you for at least a dozen meetings.
If I see you elsewhere, or if you have changed your appearance I will not know you.

Everyone at my gym blends into groups of people: young 20 somethings, body builder with Tatts (also usually bald) middle aged and bald, elderly women and elderly men..
I have trained with them, then totally ignored them at the poolside.

It took me months to recognise my hairdresser if I saw her anywhere else.

I used to live in a European country where all my Ex's multiple family members were completely indistinguishable.

I had better luck with the women, but the men? Same person cloned into twenty 😳

I have this, only realised what it was when I was in my 40s, agree it can be massively embarrassing. These days I try and be honest about it, but still find it really difficult. I used to struggle with my Son's football team cause there were loads of young black boys who to me all looked the same. Have also struggled in work places and dread that I haven't seen people and then being pulled up on it. I rely on hairstyle and skin tone as well, also some people have very distinguishable features which helps. One saving grace is that I'm very good at voice recognition, dont know if anyone else is the same. I can be watching an old film on youtube and I'll hear a voice and then think, I'm sure that's Lynne who was Frank's wife in Brookside in the early 90s. I'll then look up the actress and find I was right, but if I had to remember her face I'd have no chance.