Faceblind

[kissingfrogs]

Thought I'd post here as you lot are so knowledgeable.
I have a problem with being faceblind. It's quite embarassing to meet someone one day and completely fail to recognise them the next day, especially if I meet them out of context, unless they stand out in some way. I can not picture anyones face as a whole, not even my dds (I have to recall a photograph of them).
What I'd like to know is: does the part of the brain that deals with facial recognition control or influence any other functions, and is faceblindness hereditory?

Must be extremely hard for you. I find it hard to recognize people (especially men - they all look alike :) ). And have finally learnt just to smile at everyone and assume I do know them. LOL

Anyway, hope someone else knows more than me. Wikepaedia says it can be hereditory.

Sorry not much helpful to say.
I to have great difficulty with face recognition although not as bad as you. I have only recently become aware of how much of a problem this is. I have been oblivious most of my life..
Hope someone comes along with some help for you and will watch with interest.

yep-i have a problem with face blindness.
its not as extreem as youres though Kissingfrogs.
i do have a huge problem if i meet people out of context.
having said this-i did fail to reconise my own son recently when he knocked on my door-
[only for a few seconds]-which was rather embarressing.

i also have a big problem with people ringing me up-i often sit there panicking as i cant work out who im talking to for quite a few minutes.
i also find it really hard to disinguish accents on the phone.

i also find it[often]difficult to put myself across properly to others-this is something that causes me problems with others.
[sometimes they misunderstand me-sometimes i misunderstand them]

A friend of mine has faceblindness. Over the years he has developed mechanisms for dealing with it, so when he meets someone he describes their face to him self in words so that he can remember the description. He also consciously notices things about people's gait, hair and so on so that he has a chance of recognising them at a distance. I don't think anyone else in his family has it however, and as far as I know the brain centre for face recognition is very specialised. (There's a very famous experiment in which people with autism and without autism were shown pictures of faces and then pictures of something else. Those with autism used the same part of the brains for looking at both pictures, the neurotypicals used a separate bit of their brain for looking at the picture of the face.)

I too have difficulty recognising faces and, apart from the obvious social faux pas I'm prone to, I find it really hard to keep track of who's who in films, especially young good looking people who appear to all come from the same mould.

Nice to know there's a few people out there with same problem. I feel it's either getting worse as I get older - or I'm much more aware of it now. I wonder if I "became" facebind because I'm very short-sighted, was late-diagnosed, and then didn't wear my glasses for years, therefore in my case recognising people by colour/gait/overall image was prelearned and my brain got used to that.
So, I walk around blind as a bat for 21 yrs and have visual spatial problems and faceblindness because the part of my brain that should have been exercised became as useless as an appendix.
Mind you, after over 20yrs of corrected vision you'd expect an improvement...

Interesting theory kf, and definitely a possiblity - a while ago they did an experiment on cats, that kittens were brought up in an environment that had no vertical lines at all. When they let them loose in the 'real world' they walked into anything consisting of vertical lines eg. a barred gate, as they just couldn't see the lines.

I suffer from face blindness, although at about 6%ile so just above the diagnosis level. there are still some mums i am friendly with in the school yard, that both have dark hair and after 2 years I still muddle them up . I have given up watching films as I just can't work out who the characters are if they have the same colour hair .

I have trouble with faces - real trouble. It is so embarrasing and makes me feel very incompetent, especially at work! So I can sympathise! Although I may have been born with a bit of a weakness in the memory department - I was always bad at recognising voices on the phone- I always knew if I had seen a face before - just not always who they were!! It suddenly got critically worse (after an medical incident)so I could not recognise faces ( or recall them) of even people I knew well until they moved or spoke. I can however recognise people from my childhood. I also cannot draw now ( I was Ok at school - not talented but OK) as I cannot recall images including faces. I have to make deliberate word based memories to assist when drawing in notes etc. I have become a little bit phobic in meetings/social situations and have told some people. I try to act 'neutral friendly' to everyone I meet in the hope some clue will trigger memories so I can recognise them in context (if I have met them before)- before my lapse is obvious.
I do not know why, but I suspect that in my case it is not genetic - although perhaps the underlying dodgy memory is!

Ps I remember seeing a programme about face blindness and there was some hypothesis ( and ?evidence) that a specific part ( or was it parts) of the brain are involved with facial recognition. Also I have read somewhere that there are correlates sometimes with some/ other developmental disorders such as dyslexia and ASD.

prosopagnosia

Yup, I'm faceblind. I have to recognise even close family by features other than their face. One of the 'ancient' parts of the brain that's right in the middle of it (the amygdala) links in with the bits just behind our ear ('temporal pole') to tell us who's who. There's a few more bits that also link in, but those are the main ones. Together they are the 'people centre' that tells us who's who and how to behave around them.

If any part of those bits, or any bit of the in-between wiring, is dodgy/slow/linked in differently, then we can't work out info about people, or it takes us ages.

Apparently 1 person in every 50 is a "super-recongiser" who never forgets a face, even if they've only met them once and it's years later. 1 in 50 of us are bloomin hopeless at faces. The rest are somewhere in between.

It's very embarrassing and I'm always having to apologise for not recognising colleagues/losing friends in a shop because they turn sideways and I'm not sure if it's them or not.

I've been reading up a bit on this lately & there is someone at the psychology dep at Essex Uni who is doing research on faceblindness.
May be worth you having a look at their website they have loads of stuff on all sorts of related subjects too.

I've replied to a post in chat about it and only just spotted this!

I had a degree of face blindness and was sucessfully treated by Ian Jordan with coloured specs (that I no longer need) - I can now see faces properly and recognise faces too. It also helped with finding my way around (used to have to take an A-Z most places!) My boys are both ASD and both affected (one also dyslexic) and treatment helped a lot.

Ian Jordan has done loads of research on this and does a lot of work with ASD kids especially - mine were treated on the NHS. He's in Ayr but if you phone him will let you know if anyone nearer. If you google "Jordans eyes" you'll get his website.

I firmly believe that all kids with ASD should be screened for this - not all will be affected but for those who are this treatment makes such a difference. (There is a link with autism but is in non ASD people too - more people becoming aware of it.)
However it is vital to get correct screening - not all opticians have the right equipment.

Tessa

Mine's related to a missing part of the brain, so alas the coloured lens thing doesn't work for me. I think there can be different sorts of faceblind.

Yes there are different causes of face blindness (eg head injury) and not every intervention works.

My case was definitely visual processing - once the specs helped me see faces then the "recognition centre" in my brain started to work - this took 18 months and during this period I was rather challenged as seeing people's faces distracted me from my old standbys of clothing, height, build, gait etc.

Sorry to hear that it didn't help you Amberlight.

Tessa x

This is all really interesting!
Stressa, I'm also terrible at finding my way around. Giving me directions is hopeless because I can't tell my left from right. This has led to many embarassing moments.
The faceblindness is worrying for me. Magso, I completely understand. It really bought it home for me when I began working in a place with lots of people. I developed lots of strategies to hide my incompetance at recognition - such as asking someone to get Mr.X for me rather than looking myself, or asking someone to pick up their file so that when they did I could sneak a look at the name on it. I'm not dyslexic - was tested for that a few years ago (long story) but was told I had severe visual spatial difficulties. Didn't help that I took a wrong turn leaving the testers office and had to be "helped" to find the exit, then failed to recognise the tester in the foyer...

Yes - I had great problems finding my way around indoors and couldn't seem to "reverse my route". It was very difficult to find my way back to the table after visiting the loo in restaurants/pubs (even without alcohol!)The strategies you mention were very familiar....

I think a lot of people have this but are too embarrassed to talk about it - I certainly was. Do speak to Ian Jordan I'm sure he can help!

Tessa x

I'm face blind and part of a new organisation, Face Blind UK. Have a look at the website at www.faceblind.org.uk

There's also a book about people's experiences of face blindness - "What It's Like to be Face Blind" - get it from www.lulu.com