What physical parts of a person do you distinguish them by?

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I don't tend to look into people's eyes, and am not able to recognise faces without contextual clues, but I always observe people's hands, and particularly fingers and fingernails, in great detail, and I can generally recognise someone by their hands. I even see personality in the hands - there are certain finger shapes and fingernail shapes that I have come to associate with certain personality traits.

I'm just curious whether anyone else does this, or if it's just me.

There's a phenomenon known as prosopagnosia or face blindness which sounds like what you're describing - the inability to recognize people from their faces. It often but not always is accompanied by a difficulty in recognizing facial expressions.

People with face blindness often recognize people by other cues, and which cues varies from person to person. I read up a lot about face blindness a few years ago, but I am not face blind myself, so I do primarily recognize people from their faces.

I'm actually quite interested to hear that you recognize people based on hands, because when I was reading about it, I thought that hands are a body part that show a lot of distinction and variation and that it would be quite plausible to recognize someone from, but I hadn't come across any account of someone who had hands as a major recognition method.

A couple interesting links:

http://www.prosopagnosia.com/
http://www.choisser.com/faceblind/

I tend to recognize people mainly from their clothing and hair.

I can recognize by face, certainly, but I'm primarily focused on their clothing, hair, and sometimes even their posture. I tend to not look at hands, because I find almost all hands other than my own to be too long and almost talon-like. I find them kind of creepy, to be honest. Same with feet.

Thats very interesting. About a month ago someone at the caffee tested my personality based on my writing style, and they gave me like 20 personality traits that describe me, and they were only wrong in may be 2 or 3 of them. Have you ever tried to offer ppl to test their personality by their fingers, or write a book about it? That could get you famous.

I have the prosopagnosia....but fairly mildly...
When I recognize people by often varies. I have recognised people by the clothes that they wore..so that in one evening if a person changes their clothes I may no longer recognize them.

I have also recognized people by their hair...

If there are not particularly distinguishing features about a person..most particularly...someone I don't need to recognize...I may never recognize them at all. There are many people who for all practical purposes, look identical to me.

I am a somewhat public figure because I run a venue...and I get recognized in public a lot and never recognizing people has caused me a great deal of anxiety...and I have made people mad...and long before I ever knew about AS...I have often found myself apologizing to people for my difficulty in recognizing people.

Yes, I'm pretty sure I have prosopagnosia - I just don't tend to say I have it, because it's not something that most people have heard of, and also I've not had it officially diagnosed, so I just say I can't recognise faces outside of context. I don't even recognise family members if I see them outside of a context where I was expecting to see them. I do recognise facial expression, but only when I'm concentrating and focusing on the face. I'm often distracted by other things. I can also recognise a person's face once they start talking - there is something in the movement and expression that I recognise, which I can't recognise when the face is still. It's very odd.

I can also draw portraits and get a good likeness, but I still wouldn't recognise the face of the person I drew if it was out of context. I assume it's because I see the details and angles and ratios and distances between features, and it somehow stops me seeing the whole. In a similar way, I can phonetically transcribe what people say with great accuracy, but I have poor auditory processing.

Thanks for the links.

Hair and body shape.

I am unfortunately thwarted by makeovers and diets.

It depends how long I know them for and how important recognising them in the future is.

If it's just a random group of people, whom I am unlikely to see again, I usually recognise them by their outfits.

If they're in my year, but not friends, I go by hairstyle (this is v tricky with the female Muslim population due to the headscarfs)

If they're friends, usually a combination of hairstyle, walk and head shape.

I rarely look at eyes, so they're not much use for identification.

I recognize people by their hair and body shape and clothing.

Faces, eyes, noses.

body shape/face and I can recognize people that I know well from very far by the way they walk

Hair and clothes style. If someone were to drastically change either I probably wouldn't recognize them.

Uhm.. none really.. I pay very little attention to physical characteristics.

I mostly distinguish people by height, width, skin tone, patterns in clothes worn, and sometimes even smell. But I know what you mean with hands. I don't tend to distinguish people by them, but I'm fascinated with hands for some reason. Sometimes I even catch myself staring at peoples hands, especially if I'm on a bus, or a plane, or anything like that. It usually happens with hands that are more active though, not sure why. I guess I just like following their movements, and trying to tell what exactly they'll do next. Even I find it weird. Does this sound like some kind of hand fetish?

The entire picture.... sort of. The face somewhat if I stare long enough, certainly the hair and clothes, mannerisms, and context. I'm more likely to recognize a person if they are in the same setting where I met them before, and wearing similar clothes as before.

When I get to know someone well I can recognize their face just fine.

I think we are bad at remembering faces because of anxiety and our poor social skills. Too much of our brain power is used for communication when we meet someone, and generally speaking for avoiding looking like an idiot; we don't have any left to scan facial features. Also, at least in my case, anxiety tends to affect short term memory.

Noses when within talking distance. I usually recognize people from their facial profile rather than a front on view of their face.
From far away I see their body shape/silhouette, height and gait.