Prosopagnosia: how many of you have it?

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We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't see it as an all or nothing issue and I think that the medical community agrees.

I don't have it. But, my Mum, who is more than likely on the spectrum, appears to have it to some extent. It's not severe, but there has been a few occasions when I've been shocked that she didn't recognise certain people, e.g. my cousin, who had some stubble and an old friend, who hadn't changed at all. My husband, who is without a doubt BAP (broader autistic phenotype), definitely has it. He doesn't agree that his inability to recognise people out of context is unusual, however. He thinks that I'm just really good at recognising people. But, he doesn't know any of our neighbours, other than 3 or 4, if he sees them in the supermarket. And he seldoms recognises actors that he watches in shows every week, if he sees them in something else, even if they look the same as usual.

Yes, I have this. It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized there was a name for it.

In fact, until coming across it on the internet, I kind of thought everybody was the same as me in that way.

When I was in the military (a long time ago) I would always excel at (non-physical) testing, nearly always scoring 100% on any written exam. At one point, after completing a two-week training on counter-intelligence and security, I remember I got a question wrong on the final exam.

It was a multiple choice question: "Which of these is the most accurate way to identify a person who is seeking entrance to the facility which you are guarding?" The answers were like (a) check their passport, (b) military ID, (c) how they are dressed, i.e. in proper uniform for the occasion and (d) recognizing the person because you know them.

I did not choose "d" - in fact, I immediately discarded it as a possibility - and got marked wrong. I argued it with the instructor afterward (I had answered that the most effective way would be to check the person's photo ID). He hadn't made up the test, and he also didn't agree with me that it must be wrong.

Worked with the public for many years, jobs where the same people would come in over & over again but often not on any particular schedule, etc. and I found that I used to form people into "pairs" and not be able to tell them apart. Like Bob, the artist, and George, who operated a kiosk in the mall; or Michel, the weird cat collector and Michael the chiropractor.

I'd know it was either Bob or George, for example, but wouldn't know which one until I got a hint. For example, working in a restaurant, a small town restaurant with lots of regulars. The Bob/George person would order George's favorite beverage - aha! Must be George. Michel spoke with an accent, and Michael didn't. Or sometimes the whole interaction would pass and I still wouldn't know who it was.

(The concept of recognizing one's "regular" customers had to be explained to me when I started the restaurant job, which was my first job in a small town, if that makes any difference. . . Anyway, the other waitress, who was training me, would introduce me to certain customers as they came in, "This is So-&-So; s/he's a regular" & I played along as if I knew what she was talking about until I figured it out.)

Family members, close coworkers, teachers, kids' friends/friends' parents; roommate. . . you name the relationship, I can fail to recognize them anyway.

It's definitely sporadic for me (and lifelong) . . . Context helps a lot. Hair style changes are bad. Hands are pretty unique, or can be - but aren't always shown, depending on the circumstance. The way people move. Clothes. What kind of car they just got out of. These are things I can tell apart; faces are difficult.

Saw a photo in my brother's photo album of my brother holding a baby & asked him whose baby it was: turned out it was my own baby. Who was still a baby, and was also in the room with us at the time.

That sort of thing.

It has occurred to me, since I have known about my "difference" that the people I have gotten close to (friendship, romantic relationship type of thing) are mostly very distinctive looking, compared to other people around here anyway. Probably I have put off potential relationships from happening because of it, by passing by someone in what would be a rude way, because of not recognizing them. And definitely I have had the experience someone mentioned, of not recognizing someone and seeing them realize that I didn't recognize them. Those people don't usually end up being close to me. Well, no one really does anymore. Or, should I say, nowadays. If ever they did. I don't know!

I am not very good at recognising people, either. If I meet someone I usually stand somewhere where I can be found rather than looking for this person because it might be odd if I look at them and don't recognise them.

Also, I had two incidents with very severe prosopagnosia but I haven't yet found out any underlying causes as to why that happened in this situation.
The first was my mother in our kitchen. I didn't recognise here until she spoke - and it was neither a new haircut nor an unfamiliar situation. In the second situation I didn't recognise myself - and I didn't notice that the pane of glass I was standing in front of was really a mirror, either.
This was rather unsettling. It's impossible to describe accurately but looking in someone's unfamiliar face and, after someone told you it's a mirror, recognising it was your own all along is a very anxiety provoking situation.
I can only assume that my fusiform gyrus hat a temporal blackout.

I also have difficulties combining names and faces. I remember the names and I can recognise the faces but I don't connect them.

People who are born with prosophagnosia probably have a chance (due to brain plasticity) to adapt to the issue back when the brain is still learning how to recognize shapes (how to see and identify things in their environment), so the issue is less severe symptomatically. Probably compensation is in extra visual pattern recognition skills, as that is what probably gets used to recognize features rather than the expected brain hardware for the feature. Damage later in life would be much harder to adapt to (as we see in other cases, like someone blind from birth would be more adapted to not being able to see at all (better hearing, touch discernment) than someone who was suddenly blinded.

Off to some research to substantiate my argument:
These researchers (Harvard/Dartmouth research group) discuss briefly why more severe cases were identified (link):
"It seems likely that more cases of acquired prosopagnosia have been published for two reasons. First, their impairment with faces is usually quite apparent to these individuals, because they have experienced normal face recognition in the past and so they quickly notice their impairment. Second, because these individuals have had brain damage, they are in contact with medical doctors who have assessed their face recognition abilities. (Note that if you have experienced a noticeable decline in your face recognition abilities, you should contact a neurologist immediately. Any sudden decline may indicate the existence of a condition that needs immediate attention.)

In contrast, in cases of developmental prosopagnosia, the onset of prosopagnosia occurred prior to developing normal face recognition abilities (adult levels of face recognition are reached during teenage years)....[a few different speculated causes, genetic, early brain damage, and childhood visual impairment mentioned here)...
Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia often do not realize that they are unable to recognize faces as well as others. Of course, they have never recognized faces normally so their impairment is not apparent to them. It is also difficult for them to notice, because individuals with normal face recognition rarely discuss their reliance on faces. As a result, there are a number of individuals who have not recognized their prosopagnosia until well into adulthood. We have been contacted by far more developmental prosopagnosics than acquired prosopagnosics, and so it may be that this condition is more common than acquired prosopagnosia."

Apparently there was also a German study done a few years ago (2006), too, (referred to in this Time article: link) that claims they found 1/50 people have prosopagnosia. Here are some subconscious adaption skills they list: "They distinguish people based on cues like hairstyle, voice, gait or body shape. They avoid places where they could unexpectedly run into someone they know. They pretend to be lost in thought while walking down the street. They act friendly to everyone--or to no one. In short, they become expert at masking their dysfunction." They suggest issues with the temporal or occipital lobes of the brain causing these symptoms.

I don't have it. I can generally recognise someone when I see them. It's just that I don't spot people because I don't look when I'm walking in the street, I look down at the ground because of fear of eye contact with strangers.

Me too. It is very embarrassing

Prosopagnosia is realizing that my nephew has had two girlfriends over the time that I thought he had one.

I was pretty surprised to learn that the girl he took to the prom was not the girl he's dating now.

Also, seeing my niece on the street while going to see my therapist and not recognizing her until I noticed her hair color.

And that's today's prosopagnosia experiences for me.

I have this to a degree.. and it may affect my life more than I think. The times I notice it most are:

1, when I'm planning to meet someone irl that I have met online (for example, over a school forum), even if I can see a lot of pictures of them on facebook, I will be stressed about making a fool of myself and not recognizing them. Even if I'm meeting people I already know, if they are passive acquaintances, this always stresses me out.

2. When I worked customer service, and someone would ask me if we had such-and-such. I would walk away to go check, and come back and stand there awkwardly not knowing who I had been helping. I'm sure there were a few times that this confused people.... I felt too stupid to ask "are you the one who asked about such-and-such?" I started consciously noting people's shirt colors when walking away because it was the only way I could confidently help people. I wish I had known this was a thing so I could have warned my boss about it.

I'm wondering now if this is itself yet another reason I don't try to make friends in class... I wouldn't be able to recognize them the next day, and feel stupid trying to figure out who it was I'd been talking to.

I feel like I'm often surprised when I see someone again after not seeing them a while, like they don't look how I expected/remembered.

But people I am close to or seen a lot of, I don't think I have this problem.

I remember not being able to tell apart Aragorn and Boromir when i first watched FotR.

I believe I have it mildly. But if my friends were outside an area that I normally see them (like in a store) then I can't recognize them at all. And when I am doing autism conferences and they keep going to the booth (even if its over 10 times) its like I am seeing them for the first time. And there ain't many people at these conferences! Even friends that I do see more I don't know who they are. The only people that I can recognize is my family. But I can never, never recognize anyone and I mean anyone in pictures. Sometimes I don't even recognize pictures of myself (especially if its a photo of me years ago). I haven't been formally diagnosed with it though. The part that makes it a little easier is I can sometimes recognize voices of the people. That is only they have a distinctive voice rather than more common voices.

I have it to a very high degree...but I do remember body statures well and tie it to clothing cues. Why I hate fashion so much, screws with my ability to recognize people. I recognize voices extremely well, however.

They look a lot alike!

My case manager was saying "This sounds pretty normal" and talked about a lot of typical prosopagnosia stuff. She didn't seem to want to say much when I suggested she might be a bit faceblind too.

I am the exact opposite way. I almost never forget a face, and when I do, it's the face of someone I only see scarcely.

I recently failed to recognize a coworker at a festival and I think he was annoyed with me about it. When he brought up having seen me I thought he was being oddly aggressive and it wasn't until later that I realized that I probably looked directly at him and didn't "see" him. To him it probably seemed like I froze him out, but that was never my intention.

I'm so hopeless with faces that at that same festival I circled the park twice before approaching the guy I was going to the festival with. I wasn't positive he was THE guy so I waited to see if there were any other cyclists waiting. We don't know each other well, so he thought I was being shy when I rolled up. I was actually hedging my bets in case he was a total stranger.

Mostly this is funny/embarrassing but sometimes it's not. I have a bad ex-boyfriend who after 3 years apart still scares me a bit. I realized recently that at this point (even though he scares the cr@p out of me) I wouldn't recognize him on the street. If he's changed at all (weight loss or gain, hair change, different style of dress) I would have absolutely no clue who he was.

Not recognising people is bad when you are trying to avoid someone.

I got badly beaten one night after (innocently) saying the wrong thing to someone and for about a year afterwards I was continually looking around wondering if they were the people I was passing on the street.

They would have recognised me, because people always do, but I would never have recognised them again. A fact the police didn't seem to believe when I was asked to describe their faces.

I have prosopagnosia, and my father has it even worse. I can remember mixing up relatives as a kid, and I need to see someone on a regular basis for a while before being able to recognize them easily. This has been a challenge in some of my jobs. For example, when I was a bank teller, I worked in a bank with a lot of well-established customers who expected to be recognized and would get offended if they weren't. I was always afraid to ask someone for ID because I knew it was someone I was probably supposed to know but I could never be sure.

Now I'm teaching high school (not a good idea for Aspies; I'm looking for something else) and the beginning of the school year is always a nightmare for learning students names. It takes a while to tell them all apart, and I also have trouble connecting names and faces, even if I can recognize a student as being in my class. This year I have 6 classes with 30-something students each, and it took me 2 months before I could recognize each student and know their names. This makes discipline a challenge since it's hard to identify the offenders, and by the time I can, a lot of control has already been lost. My first year teaching, a couple of weeks after I started the principal I had at the time put me down for not already knowing all the students names and said "When I was teaching I knew all my students names the first day." Being able to do that is unfathomable to me. (More complaints about that principal in other posts.)

To an extent, I think I've gotten better over the years, but prosopagnosia has not gone away. I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and we go door to door preaching and make return visits on people who have shown interest. I get apprehensive about return visits because I know I don't remember what the householder looked like, so I won't be sure if the person who answers the door is the same one I talked to before. I've come up with creative ways around this problem, but it's still embarassing.