Face Blindness Realizations

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Faces of any real people.

I'm bad at visualising people's faces. I'm also bad at distinguishing or recognising people based on facial features. However, I can take a sort of snapshot of something in my mind, like a picture. It takes a lot of concentration and energy to keep it, but I can. I accidentally 'took' one of a random number plate last year, and I still have it, for some reason. I can't get rid of it.

I usually have very good recognition memory of faces but can't or have difficulty visualizing faces of people after they have left the room. I certainly wouldn't be of much use if a sketch artist asked me to describe what a person looks like but I would do very well recognizing someone in a photo line up. I struggle to remember people's names more than faces. There are a few exceptions like I couldn't recognize my neck surgeon nor my GI doctor's nurse. I didn't know who they were at first until they started talking even though I had seen each several times.

One way to practice photographic memory is to scan a picture, one line, at a time.

It feels like flying by the seat of your pants, if you can't visualize the entire face, at once.

Oh god... thats not even a contest... I am horrible with names to a fairly insulting degree.

I think I have face blindness to a mild degree. I usually recognize people based on what clothing they are wearing or hair style.

I've heard that a often to one degree or another... identity=face + [other thing]... "other thing" for me is usually voice, someone already mentioned geographic context... clothing is an interesting one.

I absolutely cannot draw faces...even when I could draw quite well some years ago I could never get faces right. Is that really a symptom of face blindness though? I always assumed drawing faces is difficult for everyone and takes a fair bit of skill...

I asked my younger brother once if he knew where my younger brother was.

I can't picture people's faces in my mind either. Their hair, their clothes, their body-shape, sure - but there's a kind of blurry shield over their faces which bounces me off when I try to focus.

I can't recognise people out of context. If I pass a neighbour in the stairwell I know them, but if I happen to see them somewhere else I don't know them from the next person.

If someone gets a haircut or is wearing a different coat to usual, I don't recognise them.

There have been a few occasions when someone's walked up to me and started chatting away, and I've had no clue who they are - people I should definitely have recognised, as it turns out! But their faces are totally different to how I remember them.

Mercifully I'm usually okay with family and close friends.

that's hilarious.

I CAN draw faces quite well... er... well enough, anyway (and yeah, it is challenging)... specifically I can't draw faces of people I KNOW... because I can't visualize them...

...and I don't know that the inability recall of a face you "know" in your minds eye is typical of face blindness... it isn't something I've heard of specifically, and I just asked if that was anything anyone else experienced... and it seems like we have to some degree.

yeah. now that my parents and sister are upstairs asleep (as its 2:20am...dont worry im going in a minute). i cant remember what they look like. if you asked me, id be unable to answer. i can say that my mother has greyish hair. and my dad has receding hair, and my sister has longish black hair. but thats it. i cant describe their nose, no clue on their eye colours (to be fair i never look at eyes anyway). what their mouths looks like or the shape of their head. its really weird, and my mother said she'd get me a photo of them to take with me when i move out. my dads always found it strange as i have to look into the car he's in when he picked me up, for a little while (too long to be socially acceptable as a casual thing). it was because i didnt know if it was him or not until i got close enough and then remembered. its strange, i dont think i like it, i cant remember most peoples faces, and that bothers me, as what if i dont see them again? ill never be able to remember them correctly!

Since making this discovery, I keep a picture of my mom above my desk. It makes me very happy to be able to look at her.

I feel I may have some mild faceblindess myself, it makes watching movies and TV very difficult when I can't remember any of the characters. I also can't remember people's faces unless they're very distinct. I take a long time just trying to remember how my parents faces look, let alone people I see occasionally. Even in my dreams I cannot see faces, they're just blurry.

Try the Cambridge Face Memory test here:
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psychology/psychol ... tartup.php

For years, I thought I was OK with faces but horrible with names. Then eventually I decided that by the time I'd learned a face, people had stopped saying their name.

Then I did this test. Apparently the average score is 80% and if you score less than 65% you might be faceblind. I scored 38%.