Prosopagnosia: how many of you have it?

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Prosopagnosia or "face blindness" is the complete or partial inability to recognize faces. For example, I only recognize the few people I see more frequently. And even for these people that I recognize, I'm not able to tell you how they look like. I don't remember his face: I only recognize them by some sort of emotion I feel when I see them.

Prosopagnosia happens also in neurotipics (the famous neurologist Oliver Sacks also has it), but it seems that it's more likely in aspies. Do you have it?

In some ways. I do recognize faces on pictures but not in action. That is, i would barely recognize a face in person, even if i know it very well from images. Likewise, if they wear, say, a read sweater in the picture and later on appear in a white shirt, it's incredibly confusing for me and i can't assign the person to the picture. However, this only applies for humans. I can easily remember and distinguish animals faces, especially cats.

I don't appear to have it.

I don't think I'm face blind, I do know that I've seen a person before... But if it's out of context, like seeing someone randomly on the street, I can have a hard time remembering where I've seen them before and who they are... It's sometimes very embarrassing when it's someone I should have recognized. I also find it almost impossible to remember people's names, unless I've seen them written (I have a very good visual memory).

I have it mild in a sense that I can compensate for it by using other features of people to recognize them. I can only recognize people if they're in an associated context, i.e. I can recognize a prof if he's at the university campus, for example. However, I will not even recognize my parents if I find them in an unexpected setting. If someone's hair, gait, or style of clothing is distinct enough, I can use these things to recognize someone, as well. Sometimes, when I bump into a person in a new setting, the person looks familiar to me, but I cannot pinpoint exactly who he/she is, even though I may have met him/her numerous times before.

Yes I have this.

I have a mild case of it but have learned to compensate by looking at ears instead. I can probably tell you how many people have ear piercings and where they are because that's been my way of identifying someone for sure. Today, I saw two girls who were flirting with me a couple of days ago and one I recognized her face and the other I didn't have a clue until she called me by name and told me who she was. I hope she doesn't take that has disinterest!

I've had many instances where I blurted out someone's full name even though I did not recognize them AT ALL. So far, I've been 100% correct every time I've done that.

I think I have a touch of it...certain peoples faces are hard to retain, or they seem to look like a different person whenever I see them, either in different contexts or from different angles.

I also get the reverse - thinking I recognise someone as a person I know but then they turn out to be complete strangers.

If it is a family member or someone I work with---no problem usually. But with people I don't see much, I will often have difficulty recognizing them later. I can also get certain faces mixed up with others. Another thing is that although I may see a person's face in a picture, I may have difficulty recognizing that face in real life.

Yes

My primary method of recognizing people is by their voice. After that comes things like hair, gait, size, ... . And the location or context means a whole lot -- I can often recognize people at their homes relatively easily (unless there is a big crowd) because of the limited number of possibilities of who they might be.

One time after my younger brother got a hair cut, I walked up to him and asked if he could tell me where my younger brother was.

I live in a small community with a population of about 70 near a small town with a population of about 1,200 in a county with a population of about 4,000 where I am supposed to know just about everyone. One consequence is that I usually treat most everyone as if I know them since I really don't know if I know them or not. This can lead to some odd situations when it turns out that I've never met whoever I'm talking to.

At one former company where I used to work in the Houston area, I used to have to go to the airport to pick people up on a fairly regular basis. I would stand by the gate as people came off of the airplane and watch everyone closely to see who responded to me.

It is quite rare for me to call someone by name when I run into them because I usually don't know who they are. I've gotten so used to just saying howdy without saying their name that it is unusual for me to say their name on the occasions when I do recognize them.

I have this. If a person changes their haircut I might not recognise them at first.
Voice helps recognition, and familiar clothes.
I met my brother after an absence of a few years and didn't recognise him.

I don't use people's names much. I tend to forget names even when I have known the person a long time and know I know them, but can't recall it at that moment.

I have it partially. It's worse with females, especially youthful ones considered "pretty" or attractive. The pretty ones just have the same generic structure to me and they blend together. I also can't tell the age of them. 16-years-old looks no different to me than 23-years-old.

Since I'm gay, this is not a major problem for me.

Yes.

My earliest memories are of me trying to work out who the person offering the drink, or asking for my coat, was.

More of a problem in adulthood. As a child when you are frozen in indecision about who the person is, they put the long delay in response down to shyness. In fact you just are doing something else while they wait, namely going through all the possibilities before deciding "this is gran".

As an adult you walk past a stranger only for them to speak your name and their face (which you already glanced at) suddenly changes into a person you know well. Its a weird feeling, like an optical illusion suddenly becoming visible from the backround.

I know people by their voices, their ears, their height and gait and most especially by their hair. The way they move is very important, I can often recognise people from behind at a distance better than many NTs, so long as they are standing or walking. I think I get a better look from behind, I don't look long enough if they are facing me, because the time it would take me to work it out is a rude amount of staring!

Often if someone dyes their hair I won't recognise them no matter how long I stand there and talk to them about their family. I know in theory who they are, I certainly remember all the facts about them like name, associated people, job etc, but in the back of my mind I am aware that they could be playing a trick on me, because there is no spark of recognition at all unless the hair framing the face is right. The optical illusion stays stubbornly hidden.

Oh, and women are so much more difficult, I've even failed to "see" my sister, my mum and my best friend on at least one occasion each!