More On [Face-Blindness]...

[Crossbreed]

I have what appears to be a mild form of prosopagnosia. I do not always recognize local people in different settings. Other times, I know that I have met them before but cannot remember where.

For me, face-blindness seems to be one of those hypo-/hyper-sensory "features" of autism. I readily recognize celebrities on TV. Recently, I recognized a young child actor (Barry Gordon) who I had only previously seen as an adult. Another actor was wearing a police helmet & sunglasses and I correctly identified (David Soul) just by his mouth...!

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Oh yes! For me every time I see someone I kind of get surprised like "Oh wow, that's what they look like!?" But I don't tell the person. I don't want them to think I don't care. Because I do care. I just have trouble remembering faces.

Eventually though, I get used to them and memorize their face. But it does often take a while.

 

[UFO]

I do have had moments when I have been in a lecture, I have seen the lecturer only once or twice before, left the classroom, remembered that I should ask something, and returned to meet the lecturer at the corridor, and I have had to ask "were you X who were just lecturing about Y?" simply because I wasn't sure - only the bald head and water bottle he was carrying gave me a hint that this random looking guy might be him. I have also thought that some random person was an old family friend that I haven't seen for a couple of years - embarrassing situation as I went as far as saying "Hi! How are you doing?".

However, as a movie fan I do tend to recognize actors, no matter how thick layer of rubber mask they are wearing. It could be a shape of their mouth or eyes, or just gestures and a form of physical presence, which tips me off. Though, Colin Farrell as The Penguin has remained unrecognizable to me, but I can't recall any other examples for now.

Probably has something to do with how interesting I find people to be. And that it is easier to observe (make an eye contact...) an image of person than a live person. And that camera frames the visual information to only the essential details, making it easier to pay attention to things like the structure of a face, rather than to the dandruff on their shoulders.

 

[GregorSamsonite]

I'm recently diagnosed autistic and I've had this issue my whole life. I don't totally understand what causes it for me, it seems like if someone doesn't have any features that particularly "stand out" for me then it's hard for me to recognize them. This happens most with new people I've only recently met. Many times I'll see them a second time at a party or something and they think I'm being rude by not immediately acknowledging them, when I actually don't recognize them. Changing significant features throws me off too - I can think of many times where a new haircut or switching from contacts to glasses makes someone completely unrecognizable to me. One counter point I've noticed is that famous people who most people wouldn't recognize, like directors or authors, I can immediately recognize in photos, and I'm sure this is due to the fact that I've seen them repeatedly now while scrolling social media due to the particular accounts I follow. So if you want to get better at this, I'm thinking one way could be to create "flash cards" of people you know and want to make sure you recognize. Might seem a little weird, but with most people posting multiple photos on social media these days, it would be easy to collect photos and "test" yourself to make sure you recognize them. Similarly, I knew someone who had trouble remembering people's names, so he kept a little notebook with him and wrote down the name of every new person he met. Just the act of writing it down helped him commit it to memory.