I just figured: I can't imagine faces

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I just figured this. I cannot imagine how someone's face looks. As in: I cannot picture their face in my head. I just realized this because I met with a girl from college to discuss some paper we are currently working at (each of us individually, of course, and I am already finished, and she asked me for help). She asked me to add her of facebook, and even though I rarely log in, she said it was the most comfortable way to stay in touch since I don't have a cellphone. I typed in her name, and looked at the entries that popped up, and try to pick the right girl with her name, when I realized... I could not remember what she looked like. This is quite common with new people I meet, and I know I usually tell people apart by other things (especially voice, height, posture, walk and - I am dead serious - scent), and that I usually forget what people look like when I do not see them very ofte. But this time, I wanted to recall her face, and I simply could not. I don't even remember if I thought she was pretty or not. Then, as an experiment, I tried to imagine what people close to me looked like. I tried to imagine my grandfather's face, and everything was there, how he walked, how he dressed, his build, his cologne... but not his face. I took an old picture of his, and there it was again. I put it back, and seconds later, I could not picture his face in my mind. I think it is rather peculiar, since I do not have trouble recognizing people on the streets, even by looking them in the face. But if you came to me and asked me: "What does person X' dace look like?" I could not tell you. It is rather funny that this quirk of mine never occured to me up to this point. I know that we folks with AS have trouble with faces and expression, but is this something to be concerned about, or do any of you share similar experiences?

This phenomena is typically called prosopagnosia or face blindness.

It is believed that our ability to assign names to objects is in a part of the brain called the left fusiform gyrus. Similar to it but with a slightly different purpose is the right fusiform gyrus that is believe to do the processing for us to recognize faces.

Acquired prosopagnosia is the result of an accident of some kind and is usually more severe. Development prosopagnosia is something one has from a very young age and is not the result of an accident. It is usually not nearly as severe. As I understand it, it isn't unusual for those with forms of autism to also have some level of prosopagnosia.

I mainly recognize people by the sounds of their voices and then by other things such as hair, hair style, body size, clothes, the way they handle themselves, or even their car. Also, where I see them is a big factor -- I may recognize my brother in this area, but if I was walking down the street in a city where I wouldn't expect to meet him at all, I would likely not be able to recognize him.

At one company, I frequently went to the airport to pick up the president of the company, one of my coworkers, or a representative from our major investor. This was a big problem for me because I was never sure if I was going to be able to recognize them. What I would do is stand conspicuously by the gate where they could see me when they got off of the airplane and I would watch carefully to see their reaction when they saw me.

What is interesting to me is that there are very few people I can visualize their faces. The one person that I can probably visualize best is one of my neighbors who I see a few times a year. If I had to describe someone's face to a police sketch artist, I could probably describe his far more accurately than my own brothers and sister.

My mother passed away about 51 weeks ago. I couldn't describe her face if I had to. The same goes for my brother who passed away on July 1 last year. I'm quite certain I couldn't recognize my paternal grandparents at all if I saw them today looking the same as they were when I was a kid even though I grew up across the field from them and was at their house all the time.

The thing you've said about the police sketches sums it up perfectly for me. If I was in such a situation, I couldn't even describe my own parents. If I actually see the person, I can even recognize them by their face, which is weird. Some minutes after they are out of sight, I forget it. I just tried it out with a friend of mine, and it is indeed like that.

Someone recently asked me what a coworker I have worked with for five years looks like. I realized I couldn't describe her at all.

I have prosopagnosia as well, I can't bring people's faces to mind accurately and I also have trouble recognizing them. This came to light to me initially due to the difficulty in recognizing people... I don't use faces to do this as most people do, but rely on other clues (especially voice, plus other secondary characteristics like gait and the space their body takes up). Sometimes it's quite problematic, especially since most of the secondary characteristics are changeable. When I meet new people that I will have to distinguish, like coworkers, sometimes I make note of particular characteristics that I can check for later to identify them.

Like Xlexa, I can picture people's faces better if I draw them. I like to draw people close to me, then I can remember the drawing. I also try to memorize photos of people I know in this way, so if I want to picture them, I can do so by visualizing the photo. I don't know why I can't assemble their face "from life" the way I can remember the photo or drawing (my memories and though processes are almost entirely visual, so when I want to remember someone's face, it does bother me, and I like to go and look at a photo of them and hold it in my mind). However, this only helps because I know who is in the picture. I can't identify a person that I don't know based on a picture of the person.

I also think I tend to gravitate towards "distinctive" people for this reason, who have more easily identifiable characteristics, or always dress the same way. Some people look "generic" to me and are much harder to recognize than others, especially if they also don't have a distinctive voice or speech pattern. I also tend to not find the "generic looking" people attractive. Incidentally, I'm also one of the generic looking people to myself . I probably wouldn't be able to recognize a photo of myself if I didn't know it had been taken, and I didn't recognize my clothes or the context.

That's an excellent point.

I can recognize people by their faces without trouble, but I often have a hard time picturing someone's face when they're not around. It's not always impossible, but it takes some concentration and sometimes I just can't get it. Also, when reading or sometimes dreaming, when I imagine people/characters their faces are often blank with no features at all or morphing somewhat.. I couldn't describe the face of a book character while I could describe my view of the rest of their physical features.

Now I understand how my brother feels. Thanks for this post.

I am more faceblind than I realized. It's mild, but I have a harder time placing people outside of recognizable environments than I realized.

Sunday afternoon, I stopped at a local fast food place (Dairy Queen) for a hamburger. I sat at a table with someone that I first thought was someone I know but the voice didn't match at all.

We had a pretty good talk about a local tornado from years ago. (The tornado was one of the biggest in recorded history but the only damage was that it turned over a couple of old trailer houses.)

While I can't accurately picture real people, I can make up faces in my mind (imaginary people, book characters) without issue. I don't know if it's always consistent, of course, since I can change them into whatever I want in my head, but they do *have* faces. The problem is if I try to do this with real people, it's obvious that it is not correct, so most of the time if I am remembering something with real people I just don't "focus" on their face, because if I focus on their face and can't get it that starts to bother me. I can sometimes think of certain features of real people (like, I can picture what someone's nose looks like, and other individual parts of their face if I know them very well and have studied their face and consciously tried to remember those), I just can't assemble them into a proper whole. When I dream, people "seem" right at the time of the dream, but later when recalling the dream I can't fill in the faces properly. They often change appearance during the course of the dream as well.