I don't understand the concept of face blindness

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Blah blah blah. You humans!

Face blindness means not being able to memorize faces, and it's the first sign of autism. I didn't recognize my father after a few days absence because he didn't shave. didn't recognize my mother at age seven because she tried on a wig. Didnt reconigze myself in the bus mirror because my hair was dishelved.

change something about your appearance, and I have no idea who you are. I don't remember the little details about the face. this is face blindess in all its glory.

FWIW, I am not sure that difficulties recognizing non-verbals (expressions, etc). is due to ToM issues. I am sure it is not related to faceblindness, but I am not sure it is related to ToM. I think it is a "thing" in and of itself.

For those of you who think it is related to ToM, what makes you draw that conclusion?

I'm getting my terms mixed up again.

To be precise - please see "Cognitive Empathy". It's sometimes used interchangeably with ToM. From the Wikipedia article on Empathy:

Cognitive empathy: the capacity to understand another's perspective or mental state. The terms cognitive empathy and theory of mind are often used synonymously, but due to a lack of studies comparing theory of mind with types of empathy, it is unclear whether these are equivalent.

When reserachers comment that people with Asperger's lack empathy, what they are specifically saying is that people with Asperger's are unable to "intuitively pick up on" another person's state of mind and state of emotions based on facial expression and body language of the other person.

So yes, cognitive empathy is somewhat different from ToM but is related.

hmmmm....here's what I see, but I don't know what terms belong with it.

People on the spectrum have a hard time recognizing many forms of non-verbal communication (facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, etc). I don't know if there is a term for that.

I think that people on the spectrum are no more likely to lack empathy than any other group of human beings (plenty of NT people lack empathy. If all NT people were empathic, we wouldn't have so much suffering and hatred on this planet). But because they (ASDs) are unable to "read" many cues that NTs use to identify when empathy is appropriate, they are errantly viewed as being non-empathic.

I think there is a HUGE difference between being non-empathic and not being able to pick up the cues to correctly identify circumstances that would normally lead to empathy. My son, for example, sometimes misses the cues, moreso when he was younger. That makes him appear non-empathic. However, once someone verbally explained the situation to him, he was often MORE empathic than most people would ever be.

I definitely lacked empathy completely as a child.
For people who have empathy, how do you know that you do, what does it feel like to have empathy?

I have always had empathy but it has grown in recent years. what does it FEEL like? it feels like, when somebody else is hurting, that YOU are hurting as well. it is like you feel others' pain. that, plus a dollop of pity.

When I have empathy, I can imagine how I would feel if I was in someone else's situation. For example, there was recently a story on the news about an autistic toddler who was lost. I felt bad when I heard it and my eyes teared up, because I can imagine the pain I would feel if one of my kids were lost. So even though it wasn't my kid that was lost and neither of my kids have ever been lost, I felt bad, because I imagined it.

Knowing what to do is not always easy. But what I find is that most people who are in need of empathy, mostly want to know that someone else understands their plight. I am good at lending people my ear and my shoulder. Some people do better with more "action-based" displays of empathy. For example, some people bake food or make meals and bring them to people who are having a hard time.

Some people say there is a difference between sympathy, when you feel the other person's pain, and empathy, when you understand the other person's pain. While there are times in which I feel this distinction is a useful one, I do not think answering your questions is one of those times. But a "purest" would probably tell you that since I cried when I heard about the lost toddler, I was experiencing sympathy, not empathy.

When I was a child, I think I had heightened empathy. The first time I saw professional wrestling on TV I threw up all over the place and became inconsolable because I could not understand how one human being could do that to another. Even after I knew it was fake, I couldn't watch it until well into my teen years without feeling nauseated. I still do not like it. Nor boxing. Nor any other sport where the goal is hurt someone else. I also could not stand seeing other kids teased and would often stick up for them, even though I was prone to being teased myself. I am still like that a bit today. I do not get easily offended on my own behalf, but I am quick to stand up for someone else.

you took the words right outta my mouth the world needs more of you

I had little empathy as a child--though a little came through every once in a while.

As an adolescent, I began to develop cognitive empathy.

I only began to develop a considerable amount of "true" empathy when my wife's son died in 2006 from lymphoma. With me, "true" empathy only comes with experiencing the thing that brings on the empathy in the first place.

I think I don't lack empathy anymore like when I was a child.
I think I lack empathy only in certain areas, like when someone says that their feelings are hurt by something that doesn't physically hurt them, then I lack empathy and think get over it, and also tend to lack it when someone says that they can't do eberryday things despite being smart, then I also lack empathy and think get off @$$ and try to figure it out.
There are probably other situations, but these two come to mind immediately.

For me I can generally recognize people I'm around a lot with in their proper context. That is, if I am where I normally see them. So for example if I see a mom of one of my girl scouts at a girl scout meeting I will usually recognize them. The more I see someone the easier it is. However, if I bump into one of those moms at the store... they start taking to me and I have no idea who they are and its really embarrassing. I know I must know this person, and they look familiar... kind of but I can't place them. I finally told a few people because the girl scout situation was getting really harsh.

Now, even people I see a lot it can happen with, for example I bumped into a coworker that I've worked with for 9 years at the store and I was so confused, it took me 30 seconds to figure out who it was. My daughter is worse than me. She is halfway through the school year and only knows the names of two of her classmates and absolutely wouldn't recognize them out of class. She gets her teacher and her aid mixed up, they are both tall, middle aged, and blond. Ok, you got me. I can't tell them apart either and that makes the iep meetings waaaay awkward.

For me, it's like this: I know I've seen that person before, but where I don't know. Other times I can meet a person 10 times and never recognize them (actually happened, very embarrassing). Most of the faces don't look similar, I just don't recognize them. Sometimes, they all look alike. I can't stand this; it's like I'm in Being John Malkovich.

I'm also really bad at names, so meeting new people is a nightmare.