Do you have trouble recognizing people you recently met? As someone with this challenging condition, I share insightful stories and practical tips to help you manage it.
Did you ever notice someone you recently met didn't know who you were? They could be suffering from this disorder.
Prosopagnosia is a neurological, cognitive disorder that laymen refer to as face blindness. It's challenging if you have difficulty remembering the faces of people you've met.
I see people's faces perfectly, but I'm not processing the information. So, I'm missing something important: The detailed features of their face.
It doesn't interfere with social skills in a face-to-face conversation because I notice facial expressions and other forms of body language. Therefore, I can tell if someone is interested in the conversation.
That awareness is an essential social skill, and I'm glad I can do that. However, it doesn't help me recognize the person the next time I see them.
So, it's apparent that prosopagnosia does not affect other social interactions. It just causes a failure to process facial features. And my brain doesn't find a match in my memory the next time I see someone I just recently met.
To explain it another way, the vision of one's face is evident while I'm looking at them, but I don't save that image in my brain for later retrieval.
Luckily, after meeting someone two or three times, I finally process the information enough to recognize them. But that takes several encounters with the person.
When you close your eyes, the parts of the brain that receive signals from the eyes become dormant. However, those parts of the brain that recognize an individual's features become active. Therefore, you can visualize a person's face in your mind's eye.
I learned that explanation from an article in Discover Magazine by Carl Zimmer, and I consider it an excellent way to understand face blindness.1
My takeaway from Zimmer's explanation is that if someone has prosopagnosia, their mind's eye is not functioning correctly. And they fail to retain a memory of people's facial features.
Prosopagnosia (face blindness) affects 2.5% of the U.S. population. 2
In addition, Harvard University and University College London developed a diagnostic test for prosopagnosia, which indicated that many more people might be burdened by it than previously thought. 3
I think it's much higher than 2.5% because when I tell people I have this condition, many admit they have some form of it too. They tell me they never understood what their problem was and thought they were not paying enough attention or that something was wrong with them.
Face blindness can be inherited, which is known as Congenital Prosopagnosia. It can also be caused by a brain injury that damages the brain's cognitive ability to visualize faces and connect them with memories.
In the first case, one would have a variation of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR), which can be detected with a DNA test kit (you provide a saliva sample and mail it to the lab).
I found I have that gene variation, and my sister does too. I assume our father also had the gene, based on how I remember him compensating for it.
I remember something my father did. He was a medical doctor. He always said hello to every stranger he passed on the street. As a child, I found this a little embarrassing; I didn't know what was going on with him at the time.
When I discovered prosopagnosia in my research later in life, it gave me an appreciation for what my father was going through.
His way of dealing with it was an excellent way to avoid the embarrassment of not recognizing any of his patients. Saying hello to everyone solved the problem. I wonder if he knew what it was in those days.
When I discussed prosopagnosia with one of my friends, he told me, "When my wife introduces me to many people she knows, I don't always remember their faces or who they are if I run into them a month or so later."
Most people can meet a bunch of people simultaneously and recognize them when they see them again. They may not remember their names. They may not remember where they met. But they will know they have seen that face before. I envy that.
In my case, I need to meet someone two or three times. By then, their face gets registered in my mind, and I don't have any more problems. However, before that, things can be a little embarrassing.
People with severe cases of prosopagnosia never recognize others, not even close friends. There are reports of people who don't recognize their own husband or wife. That's an extreme case of it.
Many people with prosopagnosia have trouble following movie plots because they can't keep track of certain characters who may look alike.
A friend shared her personal story with me:
She later told me that her husband is more accepting of her now that he finally understands what's causing these situations. She said that kind of thing happens to her every once in a while.
I implemented a trick I've used throughout my life, even before I knew I had prosopagnosia or knew what it was. I'll tell you two ways how I minimized its effects, and I'm sure it will help you, too.
1. Be Friendly With Everyone
My trick was simply to act friendly with everyone, whether I knew them or not. It works in either case.
The people I have never met will think of me as a friendly person. And the people whom I had already met would never be the wiser. The only issue is that I don't refer to them by name. But acting friendly is a reasonable compromise.
2. Use Other Identifiable Clues
Another trick is to use other clues to identify people, such as paying attention to unique physical attributes other than the face. For example, try to remember something about their voice, or maybe their height or weight. Even the kind of clothing they wear.4
If someone has a feature that stands out dramatically, I'll try to remember that so I can recall who that person is when I see them again.
For example, I once met a tall, thin woman at a party. I could look straight into her eyes while chatting because she was my height. I couldn't forget that, and it helped me know who she was when I saw her again.
Another feature is the way people walk. Sometimes I notice someone has a unique gait, or they hold their shoulders oddly. These things stand out, and I remember that better than their face.
When I was in elementary school, I remember teachers who would know every student right from the start.
If they ran into any of us in the hallway, they recognized us and knew us by name! That proves it's possible to have zero problems with face recognition.
Here's an excellent example: Cops need to be able to recognize people even if they just got a quick glimpse of them. Oh, I would be useless as a witness in a lineup!
There are many YouTube videos to help you learn more about prosopagnosia. The video below is one of the best I've found.
Prosopagnosia is associated with a specific region of the brain that recognizes faces. Therefore, the condition is limited to difficulty with recognizing faces.
However, a more severe condition that makes it difficult to recognize everyday objects is visual agnosia. That is associated with the visual centers of the brain.
Visual agnosia is not the same as prosopagnosia. But I felt I should mention this for completeness.
Face blindness seems to run in families unless an injury causes it. Both my sister and my dad had to deal with it. The type we have is Congenital Prosopagnosia, the genetic type. We all have learned to compensate for it in some way, as I discussed in this article.
After I meet someone two or three times, I get to know them, and I no longer have trouble picking them out in a crowd.
Do you think you have prosopagnosia?
When I first posted this article on PatientsLounge, where I could include a reader survey, I asked this question with the following results showing the percentage of people in each category. I found it fascinating that half my readers had major issues with prosopagnosia:
Some of my friends tell me they have been aware of a similar problem. They just have a mild case of it and can live with it, as do I. People with severe prosopagnosia struggle much more and try to use other recognition methods.
We all have to find a workaround to compensate for it. I hope the methods mentioned in this article will help you or someone you know.
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