I knew that face blindness existed, but I recently learned that some people cannot visualize (aphantasia as described in the article) and many don't have an auditory narrator!! My mind was blown. I also can't help but wonder how much more relaxed and calm I would be if I didnt recognize every face, conjure and visualize constantly, dream vividly in color, have an auditory narrator, remember everything I wore to every wedding/bat mitzvah/dinner party, remember names and personal details that make me seem creepy, remember every song lyrics and music and see the music in color, drive to any destination without directions if i've been there once before... the list goes on. No wonder i'm constantly over stimulated! This is not how most people live! It's exhausting!
Very good article! People that don't have this problem have a hard time believing that it exists, but it's real. I have personal knowledge of it, confirmed by a neurologist.
There's a new show based loosely on Oliver Sacks called "Brilliant Minds" debuting on NBC tomorrow. I'm going to be recapping and commenting on the realism of the neurological disorders at sadied.com
Dr. Oliver Sacks, author of Musicophilia, had the same condition (and some amusing anecdotes), and he exhibited the same resilience that you do, and wrote a number of very interesting books.
I know! I LOVE him. I think he also had aphantasia and a touch of SDAM, and towards the end of his life, he lost his stereovision. (I'm stereoblind due to amblyopia.) I can only dream of having a tiny fraction of his immense brilliance and deep appreciation for the humanity of everyone, even the most apparently hopeless patients. (I'm also not a doctor -- could never get past that cadaver stuff!)
Samuel Clemens was frequently asked to pose for photographs with people, and, while he ordinarily conceded, he disliked the practice. He only asked for two photos in his lifetime; one, of his daughter who had early signs of a potentially-terminal disease (that did later take her life), and one after he met Helen Keller. There’s a lovely black-and-white photo of him standing behind her, she seated in a chair outside. He admired her because she was differently abled. I admire Samuel Clemens for many things (even the egotist Hemingway said Twain was not only our “best” American author, but our “only” American author), but perhaps most for his affection for Helen Keller. I suspect he would have loved you.
And this is why I subscribe to the Free Press. Useful,well thought out writing. I want to learn about the wide variety of humans so I can better interact.
Face blindness may also occur when a person is faced with a group from another race. As a young white American teacher in west Africa, I could not distinguish among my black students. I asked them to write an essay describing themselves. I got a lot of “I am a small brown boy with short black curly hair.” This did not help. I was only seeing their racial characteristics. When I got to know each of them, I was amazed at how different they were. After that I never had a problem with facial blindness. So maybe this should be called “racial blindness.”
Back in the 80s, I read an article in the SF Sunday paper supplement by a Japanese fellow, born and raised in the USA. In one part of his article, he recounted an episode in which his father traveled to Japan, and later the son traveled to meet him. At the airport in Japan, the son couldn't recognize his father among the crowd, although he finally did when the father approached. His recognition of his father depended partially on the fact that until then his father was the only Japanese face among whites.
Yup, I remember in full color and in the first person. When I start daydreaming I completely lose sight of the room around me. You know how when your watching a movie and lock in you stop noticing the rest of the room? It’s like that but with things i’m thinking about.
I once had a client who had no inner monologue. He doesn’t hear a voice in his head. For him thoughts just kind of appear, he wasn’t able to explain how he thought through decisions.
I’m not surprised the author didn’t think anything of her face blindness. In my experience people are not curious about their own psychology unless it’s causing them a serious problem.
I suspect I'm below average in facial recognition. When I see a witness to a crime on a TV show working with a sketch artist to draw the suspect's face, I can't even imagine how they do it. I couldn't accurately describe a good friend or relative's face, even people I'd have no trouble identifying in person.
The comments are as interesting as the article! It just goes to show no two people experience the same thing the same way. I would have liked to hear a bit more about how the author's life is outside of this interesting acknowledgment of how her brain works. I sometimes feel like the story only allows a certain number of words so they leave you mid thought. I would like to understand her lived experience more. She says she is a science writer, so what about that?
What are the odds that out of the tiny % of people who have this also subscribe to TFP, read this article and posted in the comments? Maybe it isn't as rare as scientist think. Fascinating.
For most of my life I had never heard of face blindness and didn't understand that I see faces differently than others. I was in my mid fifties when I saw a 60 Minutes episode on it and realized I have face blindness. It was a shocking revelation, but it explained so much in my life.
My case is not as severe as the author's. I can learn to recognize faces I see a lot, but I mostly rely on other cues to recognize people: their height and body build, their hair color and style, their voice, even their clothes. Context is also important. If I'm in a store or restaurant and I spot someone I work with, I'm never sure if it's them.
Finding out I have face blindness explained why watching a movie can be very frustrating. I used to think, "How do they expect us to keep all of these characters straight when they all look alike?" I remember especially war movies like Saving Private Ryan. If everybody wears the same uniform, with a helmet covering their hair, how can you tell who's who? If one has a beard and another has glasses I can recognize them. The rest...who knows? Now that I know I have this deficit, I just ask my wife, "Is that the same guy we saw in the previous scene?"
People often say, "I have trouble with names but I never forget a face." Imagine if you're no good at either!
I think many people have some degree of face blindness. I takes me a while knowing a person before I can recognize the patterns of their faces. I have the same problems with people names
I'm the same! I can meet someone and chat for 15 minutes, then see them again the next day in a different context and not be at all sure if it's the same person or not. Once I get to know someone I'm ok, but those initial encounters ... not always. And like you, if someone changes their hair color or something similar it really throws me off. And YES to characters in TV and movies. I think it took me half of the first season to distinguish Joey and Chandler and Ross from Friends.
Yes! I have the same problem with movies, much to my husband's consternation. [Enter his exasperated, "Are we even watching the same film?!"] When meeting several new people at once--or several movie characters at once--I've learned to spend a lot of time studying their facial features and silently quizzing myself on who's who.
I believe that some humans have a super-facial recognition ability with animals. I have an above average ability to remember what I read, and over six decades of obsessive reading I can recall several instances, from the 19th century or earlier, where someone recognized a horse not seen for fifteen or twenty years. I wonder if those authors were also super-recognizers of human faces. And I agree, the article is very well written.
I thought I had face blindness when I first heard of it, and may have to some degree but then I took the tests on aphantasia and realized that's where my bigger issues are. Like many who have already said they can't recognize people out of context, that's me too. And I can't call to memory what my husband looks like, other than details like he has gray hair, but I know him when I see him. In fact, I tend to remember people by their hairstyles or facial hair, in the case of men. Thus when my brother, who I hadn't seen in a while, grew a beard, I didn't recognize him in a photo my sister showed me. He had never had a beard before.
I instantly recognize voices, but faces... not so much. I am surprised when people can look at a picture of someone and then easily recognize that person, wearing a different outfit and/or with a different hair style.
I get it. I had a job for a brief time as an assistant teacher in a nursery school. I remembered the kids by what they wore. That didn't work out so well of course because the next day they had all different clothes. But one little boy, Scott, had a blanket he carried everywhere, and a little girl, Emily, had the chubbiest forearms and blond hair. I eventually got the others down somehow.
I heard about this condition before but I never read about the experience of people who are afflicted with this condition., Thanks for the reporting.
I knew that face blindness existed, but I recently learned that some people cannot visualize (aphantasia as described in the article) and many don't have an auditory narrator!! My mind was blown. I also can't help but wonder how much more relaxed and calm I would be if I didnt recognize every face, conjure and visualize constantly, dream vividly in color, have an auditory narrator, remember everything I wore to every wedding/bat mitzvah/dinner party, remember names and personal details that make me seem creepy, remember every song lyrics and music and see the music in color, drive to any destination without directions if i've been there once before... the list goes on. No wonder i'm constantly over stimulated! This is not how most people live! It's exhausting!
Very good article! People that don't have this problem have a hard time believing that it exists, but it's real. I have personal knowledge of it, confirmed by a neurologist.
Very interesting!
Fascinating! Loves this!
Reminds me of Oliver Sacks' "The Mind's Eye"
There's a new show based loosely on Oliver Sacks called "Brilliant Minds" debuting on NBC tomorrow. I'm going to be recapping and commenting on the realism of the neurological disorders at sadied.com
I'll check it out!
Dr. Oliver Sacks, author of Musicophilia, had the same condition (and some amusing anecdotes), and he exhibited the same resilience that you do, and wrote a number of very interesting books.
I know! I LOVE him. I think he also had aphantasia and a touch of SDAM, and towards the end of his life, he lost his stereovision. (I'm stereoblind due to amblyopia.) I can only dream of having a tiny fraction of his immense brilliance and deep appreciation for the humanity of everyone, even the most apparently hopeless patients. (I'm also not a doctor -- could never get past that cadaver stuff!)
Samuel Clemens was frequently asked to pose for photographs with people, and, while he ordinarily conceded, he disliked the practice. He only asked for two photos in his lifetime; one, of his daughter who had early signs of a potentially-terminal disease (that did later take her life), and one after he met Helen Keller. There’s a lovely black-and-white photo of him standing behind her, she seated in a chair outside. He admired her because she was differently abled. I admire Samuel Clemens for many things (even the egotist Hemingway said Twain was not only our “best” American author, but our “only” American author), but perhaps most for his affection for Helen Keller. I suspect he would have loved you.
And this is why I subscribe to the Free Press. Useful,well thought out writing. I want to learn about the wide variety of humans so I can better interact.
Very true. Why does every story have to be about politics.
Face blindness may also occur when a person is faced with a group from another race. As a young white American teacher in west Africa, I could not distinguish among my black students. I asked them to write an essay describing themselves. I got a lot of “I am a small brown boy with short black curly hair.” This did not help. I was only seeing their racial characteristics. When I got to know each of them, I was amazed at how different they were. After that I never had a problem with facial blindness. So maybe this should be called “racial blindness.”
Back in the 80s, I read an article in the SF Sunday paper supplement by a Japanese fellow, born and raised in the USA. In one part of his article, he recounted an episode in which his father traveled to Japan, and later the son traveled to meet him. At the airport in Japan, the son couldn't recognize his father among the crowd, although he finally did when the father approached. His recognition of his father depended partially on the fact that until then his father was the only Japanese face among whites.
Yup, I remember in full color and in the first person. When I start daydreaming I completely lose sight of the room around me. You know how when your watching a movie and lock in you stop noticing the rest of the room? It’s like that but with things i’m thinking about.
I once had a client who had no inner monologue. He doesn’t hear a voice in his head. For him thoughts just kind of appear, he wasn’t able to explain how he thought through decisions.
I’m not surprised the author didn’t think anything of her face blindness. In my experience people are not curious about their own psychology unless it’s causing them a serious problem.
Wow. Not me.
I suspect I'm below average in facial recognition. When I see a witness to a crime on a TV show working with a sketch artist to draw the suspect's face, I can't even imagine how they do it. I couldn't accurately describe a good friend or relative's face, even people I'd have no trouble identifying in person.
The comments are as interesting as the article! It just goes to show no two people experience the same thing the same way. I would have liked to hear a bit more about how the author's life is outside of this interesting acknowledgment of how her brain works. I sometimes feel like the story only allows a certain number of words so they leave you mid thought. I would like to understand her lived experience more. She says she is a science writer, so what about that?
I saw a link to her book at the bottom of the article. I definitely intend on checking it out.
What are the odds that out of the tiny % of people who have this also subscribe to TFP, read this article and posted in the comments? Maybe it isn't as rare as scientist think. Fascinating.
For most of my life I had never heard of face blindness and didn't understand that I see faces differently than others. I was in my mid fifties when I saw a 60 Minutes episode on it and realized I have face blindness. It was a shocking revelation, but it explained so much in my life.
My case is not as severe as the author's. I can learn to recognize faces I see a lot, but I mostly rely on other cues to recognize people: their height and body build, their hair color and style, their voice, even their clothes. Context is also important. If I'm in a store or restaurant and I spot someone I work with, I'm never sure if it's them.
Finding out I have face blindness explained why watching a movie can be very frustrating. I used to think, "How do they expect us to keep all of these characters straight when they all look alike?" I remember especially war movies like Saving Private Ryan. If everybody wears the same uniform, with a helmet covering their hair, how can you tell who's who? If one has a beard and another has glasses I can recognize them. The rest...who knows? Now that I know I have this deficit, I just ask my wife, "Is that the same guy we saw in the previous scene?"
People often say, "I have trouble with names but I never forget a face." Imagine if you're no good at either!
I think many people have some degree of face blindness. I takes me a while knowing a person before I can recognize the patterns of their faces. I have the same problems with people names
I'm the same! I can meet someone and chat for 15 minutes, then see them again the next day in a different context and not be at all sure if it's the same person or not. Once I get to know someone I'm ok, but those initial encounters ... not always. And like you, if someone changes their hair color or something similar it really throws me off. And YES to characters in TV and movies. I think it took me half of the first season to distinguish Joey and Chandler and Ross from Friends.
Yes! I have the same problem with movies, much to my husband's consternation. [Enter his exasperated, "Are we even watching the same film?!"] When meeting several new people at once--or several movie characters at once--I've learned to spend a lot of time studying their facial features and silently quizzing myself on who's who.
I believe that some humans have a super-facial recognition ability with animals. I have an above average ability to remember what I read, and over six decades of obsessive reading I can recall several instances, from the 19th century or earlier, where someone recognized a horse not seen for fifteen or twenty years. I wonder if those authors were also super-recognizers of human faces. And I agree, the article is very well written.
I thought I had face blindness when I first heard of it, and may have to some degree but then I took the tests on aphantasia and realized that's where my bigger issues are. Like many who have already said they can't recognize people out of context, that's me too. And I can't call to memory what my husband looks like, other than details like he has gray hair, but I know him when I see him. In fact, I tend to remember people by their hairstyles or facial hair, in the case of men. Thus when my brother, who I hadn't seen in a while, grew a beard, I didn't recognize him in a photo my sister showed me. He had never had a beard before.
I instantly recognize voices, but faces... not so much. I am surprised when people can look at a picture of someone and then easily recognize that person, wearing a different outfit and/or with a different hair style.
I get it. I had a job for a brief time as an assistant teacher in a nursery school. I remembered the kids by what they wore. That didn't work out so well of course because the next day they had all different clothes. But one little boy, Scott, had a blanket he carried everywhere, and a little girl, Emily, had the chubbiest forearms and blond hair. I eventually got the others down somehow.