When you look in a mirror, do you see your actual image?

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A number of persons with Asperger have indicated a kind of facial recognition difficulty with others - so how does one look to oneself in one's own mirror in the bathroom or bedroom?

By the way, I have a very subtle difficulty seeing perfect 3D and I am aware that I consciously changed my impression a little as to what I actually looked like in the mirror when I very slowly figured out I had a subtle 3D depth challenge. I also was lucky enough to find a medicine which improved (not a cure) aspects of my vision and was able see more clearly what I actually look like.

Words

Vision

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snellen_chart

Acuity of vision
Subtle visual perception difficulty
3D
3D vs 2D
Convergence (normal) vs Convergence insufficiency (imperfection)
Nystagmus

and so on.

http://www.nora.cc/

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Prosopagnosia (face blindness)
Blindness to motion (HHMI)

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http://www.hemihelp.org.uk/hemiplegia/a ... _problems/

Visual perception difficulties
Some children with hemiplegia may have visual perception difficulties.

http://www.hemihelp.org.uk/hemiplegia/c ... perception

etc.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_recognition_system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror

Last edited by pgd on 22 Aug 2010, 11:14 am, edited 3 times in total.

Ive grown acustomed to what i look like in a mirror but seeing myself in a video camera, or listening to my voice through speakers makes me feel thats not me.

hmmm, let me see.

i start every morning looking in the mirror and saying "well then, i don't know you, but i am gonna start off by washing your face...."

i have an aversion of looking in the mirror, being photographed, basically anything that makes it neccessary to look at my own face.
applying makeup is an operation for me with all the pots and utensils laid out beforehand and not something like for other women to be improvised with ( if you want to know what's en vogue ( or in VOGUE for that matter ), don't come to me and ask, ).
also, watch me jump in town when i suddenly see my full body reflection ( horror ) in a shop window, , friends used to make fun out of me.

can you have Prosopagnosia (face blindness) for your own face as well?
i can't make out my own son's face when the children crowd out of school until he is almost in front of me, which upsets me quite a bit, , but i also realized that when i am mirrored somewhere with a group of people i tend ot focus on the surroundings and then sometimes my face jumps out at me and and i think," oh no, that's me"

not exactly.
when i look in a mirror, unless im doing a specific task, like cutting my fringe or something, then i will just zone out and start daydreaming and when i look again, i'll see myself, but in a different world- like, with a pokemon by my side smiling up at me, or with a wand in my hand. its hard to explain.
x

I see (in the mirror) an image, that might never have been accurate, of a teenager - I am 46 - and the reflection has my expressions, dirt, etc. Like previous poster's, I avoid looking at my face in the mirror. I see brown hair, even though mine is grey. I am still surprised when people say I have grey hair, or laugh when I tell them my daughter's natural (undyed) hair colour is the same as mine.

I can draw the image I see, quite repeatably, and it resembles me in teenage.

yes I have that. Thats why I hate ageing as I get a nasty shock when I look at photos as the picture in my mind is of a younger me. Its like I forget that Im changeing.

First, I DONT like mirrors. I don't know why. Usually it is difficult for me to use an image in a mirror for example to comb my hair. Sometimes I stay near the mirror and comb my hair with my eyes closed. And then check the result in the mirror. Even when I look in the mirror, what my fingers feel is more important for me.
Sometimes I have a strange feeling, when I look long at the mirror, that she, in the mirror, is elder than me.

There's actually an explanation for that. No one hears their voice exactly the same as usual from recordings. That's because we hear our own voices directly through the bones in our head. Have you ever noticed that your voice doesn't sound like you to you, but everyone elses sounds the same as usual on recordings? On recordings, you're hearing your own voice closer to the way others hear it. Sound affects our perceptions a lot more than most people realize. Your voice sounding strange can actually make you think you appear oddly too.

My face, is irrelevant to most of my life. I do keep my beard trim, get a haircut pretty often but I don't obsess over it. I Never quite got used to seeing myself in reflections and when I do look it's only for short periods. I have trouble recognizing myself in a video or in the mirror. It makes me feel like a spectator looking at someone elses reflection.

Of course, how can you tell?

But seriously, folks, in mirrors I edit - I look at the part that is in focus, ignore the rest. I don't look at anybody's face more than I need to, shave by feel. I will use the mirror to check do I have a black spot of ink on my nose, say.

I cannot, apparently, edit photos the same way. The guy in the mirror must be me and mostly has to look like I feel inside. The one in the picture is this stranger who does not even look related. I do noty look at photos of me or get photographed more than I can help/

If I were to ever meet a clone of myself looking exactly the same as I do now, I doubt I would recognise the clone as being me; it would just appear to be another stranger. I still don't really know what I look like, and with every photo of myself, I see a different person who is not me. My perception of my facial appearance is different to what others see, and I hate it when I see a grotesque figure in a photo, but other people say I look fine.

Wow. The more I learn about aspergers, the more things come up that I do/experience/whatever, and thought I was "just weird." Then I learn aspies do similarly.
This is one of those things I never want to mention because I'll sound nuts. I'm capable of recognizing other people's faces, but seem to be incapable of recognizing my own. I'm like that bird pecking its own reflection, because it thinks it's another bird due to having no sense of identity. I don't recognize my reflection, or my images on photos/video.

Me-ror topic

I need to look in the mirror every so often to remind myself what I look like. But when i see a video, I look somewhat strange.