Explaining Faceblindness

Youtube decided to show me this video, and it makes a lot of great points:



Basically, face blindness is like being shown a bunch of carrots (or red apples, or garlic cloves) and being told their names. They all have distinguishing characteristics if you try really hard to find them. But, you have to find them, memorize them, and attach them to a name.

But, apparently some people see a face and their brain just....remembers it. They don't have to put in effort to try to memorize it. They don't need to use features like hair color, style, etc, to remember a person.

Some people are so good at cataloging see a face once and remember it forever. And, some people are so bad at it that it so bad that they can't tell their mother's face apart from another person of the same age, hair, and build. And some are somewhere in the middle.  

I've always struggled with names and faces, especially when people are outside of their normal context. But, I figured I was just bad at it and not working hard enough at remembering people. I had a lot of guilt! I hadn't realized that I probably have some form of face blindness until Covid happened. I was talking to another person, and they were complaining about how much they didn't like the masks because it made it harder for them to tell people apart. And, I thought in my head, "What? It's exactly the same with masks and without them!" I used other cues, like hair and eye color and style of dress and mannerisms to tell people apart.

Some people have really unique faces, and I'll remember those with their names, especially if I see them in circumstances where they're distinct from everyone else. Sometimes, a name and face sticks. But, woe betide me if I enter a classroom and there's three thin boys with short, light hair, or four girls with long brown hair who act in similar ways. Sometimes, I do manage to sort them out...but not always. And, it's even worse if I haven't seen them in a while.

Ditto.  I am horrible at recognizing people.  When in public, I will have people walk up and talk to me. They clearly know my name. But I will have no idea who they are.

I also don't know many faces, too many people all look alike. I end up going off context and mannerisms more than anything else.

I am most likely to recognize faces I deal with often, but names are filed in a different part of my brain. I have learned to tell people I work with "In a different context I will know you, but not your name, remind me." so when I see them in the mall I don't feel bad about saying "I know you, wrong context, tell me your name, thank you, hi!!"

My name is an odd one, so I will often "remind" people of my full name, because that makes them tend to say their name, great when I'm with mom as she knows no one's names ever. When someone walks up to her in public and starts chattering I'll say "Hi, I'm Opal's daughter Pearl, I think you are in her tai chi class?" response is something like "I'm in the yoga class, Kathy Williams" Which also tells mom their name :D

My dad was good with faces and names and it amazed me. He could not see someone for 10 years and still know their name, phone number, where they lived, wife's name, basics about kids (oldest is a boy, next three are girls)  I have no clue how he did it....

I can totally believe how frustrating this is!

I definitely feel there's a continuum - some people have face recognition with accurate name association as a super-power, some people are average, and some people genuinely struggle and have to find work-arounds as mentioned above.

I know that I can recognize human faces, but doing the name matching part for lesser known people, or people I haven't seen for a long time, is a major problem. The fellow in the video mentioned actors - either I remember their real name, or their character name, but for love nor money, don't expect me to have the band-width to remember both!

Then there's ducks... There are white Muscovy ducks in my field who get called BWD - all of them. Yes, if they're side by side, I can pick out subtle details (like the videos example of the garlic cloves), so I *know* they are different. But I have no way to characterize those subtle differences in any useful way so that I can tell which of them is in front of me begging me for a treat.

So if there is anyone reading this who is privately thinking, "What's the issue?" I suggest you try an experiment or 3 like the clove one to get a deeper understanding of what some people deal with on a day-to-day basis. I find that understanding leads to empathy, and we can all use more empathy in the world.

I was reading an article on the Harvard med site. It would appear there is even a more frustrating (to me) version where the person routinely believes they recognize  people they have never met.

I'm also in this club, though not at the most extreme end Nicole describes.

I also forget chunks of names. Like, my manager once got mad at me when we were working on a problem together and I had to ask him what his last name was. I just couldn't remember and I needed to key it into the database to figure out his employeeID. He acted like I was an imbecile but I fixed the esoteric problem he was distracting me from and couldn't figure out himself.

I'm somewhat the opposite; I always remember a face, but what I can't do is remember how I know that face or what their name is. It's quite infuriating.

Be glad you don't work in elementary school with 200 ids whose feelings are all hurt because you don't know their names te second time you encounter them!

I'm glad to know this is a real thing and I'm not just an imbecile.

Not quite the same ... But I tend to hide my lapses behind a cloud of distraction or dreaminess.
In my experience, 'Hey, sorry I did not see/hear that' is better than forcing your mind to fill a blank face or a split second of white noise.
Weird when talking in front of the person in a quiet location, but still better than nothing.

Have a nice evening,
Oliver

People have names, and faces?? This is news to me. I don't remember my neighbor I've lived next door to for 11 years and see semi-regularly. I never recognized my teachers outside of class. I once failed to recognize my own mom (in my defense, she'd changed her longstanding hairstyle, and I hadn't seen her in several years).

I've arrived at the point where I TELL people that I will not remember them and they have to re-introduce themselves every time we meet!

It takes me FOREVER to remember a face and name.

People come up to me all the time and start talking to me and I have NO CLUE who they are. It is so frustrating!

I'm constantly having to explain that I can't recognize faces or names.

I have it, it can be embarrassing.  If I see someone every day in a certain setting like say the local librarian and then I see them at the supermarket my brain goes haywire - I recognize them but I cannot place from where or what their name is. I feel terrible when I cannot recognize aquaintance's kids or remember their names, but they know my kid's names and everything about them.  

A couple of tips that helps (me) to remember names:

When first meeting someone, say their name (back to them) at least three times during that initial conversation. Afterwards, write their name down along with other 'identifying' information (e.g., where they work, where you met them, physical characteristics, etc.) - I'd also suggest hand-writing the name vs. 'thumbing' it into an e-device.

It seems to help the "remembering" to 'look 'em in the eye' when you say their names

Part of the 'trick' is to remember to use the tips... ;-)

It's humiliating.  I started a new job a few months ago and right off the bat,  I confused a couple of people with each other.  And I also have a special funnel in my brain that's just for forgetting names.  The instant a name enters my ears,  it gets shuttled into that funnel,  which is highly greased,  and is gone forever.  

And it's bad enough when I've only met someone a couple times,  but when I've known someone for ten years in a specific environment (with hard hat, safety glasses,  and coveralls that make them look like 200 other people) and I run into them outside of that environment,  the only thing my brain can latch onto is their voice.  And it completely disorients me.  

When I was diagnosed with autism at 45 years old,  I realized the face blindness was probably part of that,  but that doesn't do anything to relieve the embarrassment of it all.

I am somewhat face blind but horrible about names.  Reasons are similar when you see the information on it.  Often I manage putting the face with other data but still can't give the name.  For example I might be able to tell they had a husky, worked as a welder, danced highland dance, had an interest in travel and give whole paragraphs of information about the person.  But NO name.  So I understand.

It takes me a long time to learn new faces and to recognize them. And it's more difficult if I see them in a new place or haven't seen them in a while.

I also can't bring to mind faces of people I know, however, I have a shortcut for that: I can recall photographs of them.

I really don't like shows where the characters all look the same. I tried watching the first season of Game of Thrones and I couldn't tell most of the characters apart.

My son has facial blindness and despite being tested for dyslexia (privately) we didnt know until he worked it out as an adult.  He had a very difficult time at school as the moved classes for each subject, but he would not recognise the teacher or any of his 'friends' and did not know if the kids where friends or the school bullies!  He was often in trouble for mischief in class when the teacher stepped out or had not arrived as he could not 'read' the room and was always the last to look busy when the teachers hand pushed the door.  So it can also spread into reading body language and situations too.  He discovered it when a friend stopped him on the high-street and asked why he was ignoring him!  I asked him how he knew who i was when i collected him from school, he said that I was always late and always wore wellingtons!  So if you have anyone in your family with bright kids struggling at school, please offer this as a possibility, it could make these childrens time at school and education so much easier.
Thanks for reading, Pat