Anyone else suffer from Face Blindness?

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I discovered this condition yesterday. It felt like I was struck by lightening!

I swear, Oprah could come up to me in a mall and kiss me, and I would have no idea who that "nut job" was!

I tried this sites recognition test of famous people. My husband scored 100%. I scored 0. Honestly, I am not making this up! I did not recognize the icons of our society!

Then again, it is possible that it is related to my lack of depth perception, not the Asperger's... But they say it has a positive relationship to both!

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From www.faceblind.org

Prosopagnosia, also called face blindness, is an impairment in the recognition of faces. It is often accompanied by other types of recognition impairments (place recognition, car recognition, facial expression of emotion, etc.) though sometimes it appears to be restricted to facial identity. Not surprisingly, prosopagnosia can be socially crippling. Prosopagnosics often have difficulty recognizing family members, close friends, and even themselves. They often use alternative routes to recognition, but these routes are not as effective as recognition via the face

It's quite common among ASpies. I've embarrassed meself on several occaisions, mistaking someone for someone else. I said hi, then start talking about something this person has no idea of, and who looks at me as if I'm daft. (Or have lobsters in my hair.)

I'm not sure.
Sometimes I forget people and get recognised by people who I can't remember. Or sometimes I mistaken people for somebody else. It could well be just an ordinary occurance that happens to all people.

At least you're 'facing' up to your problems! lol

Last edited by squatterandtheant on 29 Mar 2007, 1:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I recognise people by the context/place associated with them not by what they look like.
I once saw my own dad out shopping and didn`t know it was him.

I don’t think I have full, 100% true face-blindness. I read once about an autistic boy who didn’t even recognize his own father after he’d been away on a trip for three weeks. His mother had to tell him that the strange man in the living room was “daddy”. I’m not that bad!

However, I do need to see a face several times before I will recognize it again. Plus, my visual memory of the face is never the same as the actual face – in other words, I can’t picture people in my head unless I know them very well.

For people I do know very well, I can pick them out across a crowded room no problem, but only if I’m looking for them specifically (if my own sister was at a party and I wasn’t expecting her to be there, I probably wouldn’t notice her unless she came right up to me and spoke). Even then, I still don’t think I recognize them by their face – I recognize them by other physical features, like their height/build, their body movements, or their hair.

Harvard runs the site I posted, they want to study people who have face blindness. They may even bring you to Boston or London England expenses paid!

I don't think you have to be so bad you don't recognize your own parents to have "true" face blindness. It seems, like Asperger's, to be a sliding scale thing!

I find it very frustrating. It can be hard following movies or T.V. shows, because you mix up the charators. Also, I often feel like an ass or "stupid" when I don't recognize or mix up famous people. I get ridiculed a lot by my family for this. Maybe knowing it is a "real" condition will make them back off.

I run into people all the time, who I don't recognise even though I should. People come up to me and start talking to me, and I have NOT IDEA who they are, but they know me very well!

One of the funniest things is, some people can find out that two aquantences they have, are actually just one person! YOu know, I know this woman at the school I pick my child up from, and a lady at the pool who has her child in swim lessons with my child. I don't connect, they are the same person!

I am so bad, I have a very very very hard time spotting my son in the pool! I have spent whole swim lessons, watching the wrong person!

I also can't tell someones nationality. It can be really embarassing, as sometimes I suffer from foot in mouth disease! At my daughters school, I saw two ladies, talking to eachother in Portugese or Spanish. 15 minutes later, we are all talking in English about having children. One of the ladies, who has a little baby, says, "if the war does not end soon, I'll have another". We have a lot of Iraqi refugees in our neighbourhood, so I ask her, "are you Iraqi?" Why I did this, heavens knows, I obvoiusly forgot she was talking in Spanish or Portugese earlier! She and the other woman stop and look at me like I am from Mars! She responds with "no... do I look Iraqi? NOw, I am totally and completely mortified, I appologise, and tell her that honestly, I can't tell peoples nationalities, it is just a "quirk" with me. She is still very perplexed... We talk a bit more, and I stammer ... "you said that you would have another baby if the war did not come to an end..." (I am really squirming right now) And she and her friend burst out laughing and tell me, "no, I said WORLD not WAR!" I will have another child if this WORLD does not come to an end!

That was a climbing under rock day for sure!

"

that was a fun test. I scored below average, but not horribly below average. I did not have as much trouble with the celebrity recogniton one..except I had trouble remembering some rediculously common names, like Tom Hanks...this is something i have been plagued with..not remembering common names...
I don't have 100% true face blindness either...but it has caused me alot of embarrasment...and it always takes me a really long time to remember anyones name.
I also had trouble on the car recognition test.

I'm bad enough that if my husband cuts his hair, I don't recognize him. When we go to Vegas, he likes to play poker while I'm off doing other things. I have to memorize what shirt he's wearing or I can't find him when I go over to the poker tables to get him.

I'm really bad. It's embarassing

I am really bad too. I am not 100% faceblind but to me a face is just another object. If someone showed me ten cards with ten different rocks and another ten cards with ten different faces I would probably score no better with the faces than the rocks.
I was given a similar test the that when I was 15 and my memory for faces was on a par with my memory for a similar family of objects such as pineapples. If anything I scored better with the pineapples.

LoL!!

I can't seem to tell the difference between a Pit Bull and a boxer. My husband thinks I am an idiot! He said it is the same as a Black Lab and a terrior!

EarthCalling: Here's your sign...
(I hope you're familiar with Jeff Foxworthy)

Not particularly...?? I'll have to google it!

I can regconize[is that how it's spelt?] people by their face.

Did you take the test? I don't think it is something all Aspies can't do. Just a common problem. I would think knowing how Autism works, that some individuals may have the opposite, almost savant like abilities to recognize people!

Recognize. Do you have problems ordering sounds in words? I am not criticizing by any means, my spelling is atrocious! So, don't ever feel insecure about spelling in on any thread I started again!

I am the Queen of bad spelling, and my son is the Prince!
(PS, this message was brought to you by the letter A, D, and the computer program, SPELL CHECKER!