Poor face recognition?

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Hey,

I did an IQ test the other day and while normally I score around 120-145, I scored 74.
It was interesting to suddenly be so low and I wondered what it was, but my conclusion was it was the emphasis on face recognition, particularly of celebrities, who I do not know personally. Not only that, I don't watch TV.
Another thing was, even when I knew the people, I still wasn't sure who they actually were, I have faces and names separate.

I began to think about face recognition and realised mine is actually pretty poor. Every time I'm in town I will pass several people who I know. Sometimes they know me from a few years back and I don't really remember them and other times I will pass by without noticing someone I saw a few days before hand. Like their face is completely not registered, until they grab my attention, and it takes a few seconds for me to register who they are while they're saying hello.

I tried looking it up and straight away autism came up.
So I was wondering how many of you guys actually have poor face recognition, and if it's any thing like what I am describing.
I'm not diagnosed as autistic, so it doesn't matter to me personally whether you are or aren't, it's just interesting to me that I never noticed this for so long.

I went to meet a friend today and couldn't find them. I realised I didn't even have a clear picture in my head of what they look like and was wondering if I'd passed them without recognising. It has only become apparent to me how much I rely on others recognising me first. =/

Yup. I often walk straight past people I should recognize. I also have difficulty recognizing friends if they are in a crowd. If you search through the archives for 'face blindness' or 'prosopagnosia' you'll find plenty of posts on the subject.

Yeah it's strange. I can recognise my mom, dad and siblings pretty effortlessly, but that's because I recognise them by their walk and the way they stand too.

And I'm not sure how you search for posts on here. >_<; I know I should have searched before making this post, but this site is confusing to me lmao >_<

It happens to me too, my oldest (or youngest?) memory about this was when I was between 6 and 9 years old, but I started caring about it recently at college, too many people to remember... I'm pretty sure it is associative prosopagnosia, but I don't know if I have AS.

Look here => What is Face Blindness like for you? <=

Last edited by Doubutsu on 25 Feb 2012, 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've got it, all my life. Actually, my diagnosis was a lot due to my total lack of clue in identifying emotions on line drawings of faces (there are plenty of other things, but that one surprised me: IRL, I use other cues to read how someone's feeling). But all my life I've had problems with recognizing people when they changed their hairstyle or facial hair or put on glasses or something, and sometimes with no major change at all, if it had been a while since I saw them.

I can't find the page you linked unfortunately, although I'll look up associative prosopagnosia. Shamefully, I don't believe I've heard of it before.

Yes, I have a mild form of it. I have no problems recognizing people I am close to, or see frequently. But there are people in the library network I work for who I still have trouble recognizing. There are acquaintances who I would run into while out somewhere and not remember who they are. It can be a bit embarrassing. I have only started considering face blindness within the past month or so, so it's funny to see this post here. Especially since I just watched the movie "Faces in the Crowd." Go fig.

Yeah, I realised it today, when I was looking through the crowd for my friend.
I described it to my sister that when I'm in a crowd everyone looks like ants and I can't distinguish them from each other. After I said it, I realised how odd it was, and that this probably isn't really what everyone has. =s


I often find when I walk into a room I'm drawn to the quiet still person in the corner of a room, much like how a cat will want to make friends with the dude sitting there silent thinking; 'I hope no one notices me, especially that annoying cat'.
And like the annoying cat I will come over to bother them.

I now think that might actually be due to this. If everyone is too animated it serves to make them less noticeable to me, somehow. So the person sitting still I can study easier in a shorter amount of time, and thus they stand out to me. It goes against logic but I suppose this may be the case.

Faceblindness has caused major problems for me in the past. People I've known have walked straight past me and I haven't 'twigged' who it was until they passed. The next time I met them, I get blanked before I get a chance to explain and apologise for not saying hello. I only found out recently that I have ASD and that Faceblindness is a common symptom. I just wish people would actually... you know... actually say hello rather than pinning it on me and making it my responsibility. I found that really annoying and it created some self-esteem problems where I was thinking that people were behaving like I should be grateful they allow me to say hello to them, which made me feel quite resentful. I'm already quite misanthropic as it is ahaha.

This was is the link, I hope it works now: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt190087.html

it got bad for me in my 30's but i had a problem w/ it for as long as i can remember
i'll not notice friends at the bar, then i'm a jerk. and explaining it never go's well either.

Aww.

I've just seen a movie about a woman with face blindness: "faces in the crowd", I didn't know when I was getting confused because of the effects or because of my prosopagnosia

I'm good with faces, not so much names. I'm not diagnosed though, and not sure if I have an ASD.

Yeah it's working now. Thank you, I'm in the process of reading through it.
It's interesting how people suspect it may be due to lack of eye contact, I don't believe my eye contact is bad.
I have to either stare at a person or look somewhere else. So I'm not sure how poor or excessive my eye contact is to most people. I know I get distracted easily when conversing though, particularly by outside sounds and sights.

A main thing I've noticed lately, since considering I may have prosopagnosia is that I often have trouble remembering who I have spoken to, so have a bad habit of retelling stories, or telling someone 'I got told blah blah blah' and they're like 'That was me...'
I have to wonder if that has something to do with this.


The is one thing I'm struggling to understand. I'm reading a lot that people recognise faces, whereas those with prosopagnosia recognise people by features, such as the nose, eyes, voice etc.
How are these different? Shouldn't recognising a face be all about recognising the features of that face? Because the main reason I'm unsure I have this is because I can often figure out who is who if I see them a lot, but will often walk straight past them without noticing them in crowded or different places. I don't recognise most of my family. People always make a point of saying my name when they say hi, which makes me more aware that I can't remember who they are, even if I think they are familiar.
I recognise my family by their walk I've noticed, but of course I know what they look like.

I also read someone saying how they'd describe their mother, and I fail to see how it was abnormal. Like when people ask me to describe someone, I will say their height, body type, hair colour, eye colour, if they have thick eyebrows, or long nails, and if they have an unusual nose or mouth. I usually think this is a normal description, like the ones you'd find in a book, but people sometimes mention this as a description for those they know, as if they're supposed to know something else. I'm sure that's normal though. =/

I've had people think I'm jerk for forgetting them too, but most are understanding and I just tell them I have an awful memory, so they just assume I only remember useless things. ^_^

I also took a test on emotional recognition and realised I have a worse ability to read emotions than I'd expected.
Because I know what >:[ and mean, I assumed that human facial expressions were as simple as that, just with more wrinkles and odd features to consider. I found that they'd often show faces that all looked the same to me and asked me to pick the odd one out. =/ I'd pick something like the person with a different hair colour instead because the faces didn't help.
Despite getting a high score, it was all chance, so it gave me somthing to think about today at volunteering.

This test was one I liked though; greatergood.berkeley.edu/ei_quiz/#1 , it tells you the correct answer afterwards and pin points which parts of the face indicate the emotion.
I don't know if any of you guys know if it, but I assume other aspies might appreciate a more factual explanation to reading emotions and might find it helpful.
I tried to retain the information to use today at volunteering and felt it helped a little bit with one person. ^_^