Prosopragnosia. (Face Blindness).

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I know a super recognizer. ^

He’s super.

I did a test for face recognition a couple of years ago as part of the studies that I was undertaking back then.

It was unrelated to autism, and more to do with criminal profiling, but I scored average.

I remember faces, in general.

The odd thing is that if I have a real cause to stare at someone and really study their face until I really learn it due to a fight or flight situation where I am in danger, I can pick them out regardless of how they try and disguise themself. I think I learn their inward patterns? BUT I still have faceblindness and have walked past my own mother and not know who it is. It is weird!

Think of it this way. I worked for many years on the railways where I could be in charge of trains of over 1000 passengers (I wasn't the driver. I was the guard).
I used to look at the patterns of passengers getting on and off and the patterns of each of the carriage seating to go to the right people. It had nothing to do with my facial recognition abilities as I hardly used them. It was all about people patterns and other recognisable features.

^ Like most things it's a sliding scale, possibly from Faceblindess to Super recognizer and everything inbetween.

I recently watched "The Expanse" and got two characters mixed up because to me they looked the same. I had to clear up the confusion with my friend who was watching the show with me.

When I was leaving uni, someone came up to me and addressed me by name and asked various questions about my course. To this day I don't know who they were.

Where I volunteer, I get two people mixed up. They should be made to wear name tags as I am made to.

It is pretty bad. So I rely on anything else I can remember, such as voice!

Do you "Group" people? My mind groups people as if they are the same person. So to me I am talking with one person who I may think I meet again at another time and think it is the same person when it is not. Hope that makes sense?

Yes, that does make sense! I've made mistakes carrying on what I think to be the same conversation with someone but they are actually a different person. Then I'm like, "oh sorry, I thought you were someone else." Humiliating.

Do you also find people you know suddenly avoiding you? Suddenly not wanting to be friends and one doesn't have a clue why?
I didn't notice this until I became an adult, as in school one looks at others ones age and where I lived there was only a few schools and most went to the same school which made it easier. Also kids are more likely to approach other kids. So recognising them as kids is easier. I don't think I had issues as a kid because it was easier to pick up on other clues, and to be honest, the majority of kids I would see was where I expected them to be!
It was as an adult when I picked up on the issues. Yes, as a kid I was putting my hand in other adults hands assuming them to be my Mum or my Dad and I was extremely clingy to them when in public as I feared losing them if we parted! But in adulthood, where I am still needing to know where my Mum will be (But she is as well as she has the same issues), I had the issues with other people in recognising them where I didn't expect them to be. (Very inconsiderste of them wanting to be in places I don't usually see them at! ).
There is something about being an adult, and living as an adult in an adults enviroment which amplifies the traits of prosopragnosia. (Though, strangely I view myself as being in my late teens to mid 20's even though I am not, and I wonder if this is common with those who have faceblindness? Prosopragnosia was the main clue when I did a non-stop three day youtube search (And watched every single thing that had anything to do with faceblindness on youtube) and found out that the majority of those with faceblindness were diagnosed as being on the spectrum. (This high figure (Which was either 65% or 85%) was with the ones who had been assessed! Can one imagine how few that know they have faceblindness never get assessed for autism becsuse they never know there is a link, and that if everyone is assessed, how high those figures will actually be! Apparently it has yet to be fully researched because they have only touched the surface in researching this subject.

I have this, but it's selective. There's a person I work with and when I would not remote like we all are now, I would pass him and just never recognize him until he waved at me. It happened a dozen times and I could never figure out what it is about him and that doesn't stick in my brain. With others, I recognize them by their walk a mile away.

To some degree I am faceblind. In most cases I recognize people from their overall appearance - body size, posture, hair style, the way they move or dress. Usually it's not a problem for me to recognize people I know. But sometimes I get the characters in a movie mixed up if they have similar hair cuts and clothes.