A Pool of Posts Pertaining to Prosopagnosia

I'm faceblind, and I wanted to start a blog about the disorder. I'm just reblogging stuff at the moment.

[autism-unfiltered]

Unmasking the Connection between Prosopagnosia and Autism

While the interplay between autism and prosopagnosia is complex, several scientific studies have shed light on this connection.

Research indicates that many individuals with autism display a particular cognitive processing style, known as 'local bias' or 'featural processing,' which favors detail-oriented perception over holistic perception. Faces, in contrast, are typically recognized as a whole or 'global' perceptual unit, rather than a collection of individual features. This distinct processing style can make face recognition challenging for individuals with autism, thereby mirroring the key symptom of prosopagnosia.

A study by Weigelt, Koldewyn, and Kanwisher (2012) found that children and adolescents with autism showed significant impairments in face memory, suggesting an overlap with prosopagnosic symptoms. Yet, it's essential to note that these difficulties did not extend to all aspects of face perception; many of the study's participants were capable of recognizing facial expressions, which implies that the impairment is more specific to identity recognition.

Another study by Wilson, Brock, and Palermo (2017) indicated that approximately 40% of tested children with autism met the diagnostic criteria for developmental prosopagnosia, emphasizing a substantial overlap between these two conditions. They found that those with prosopagnosia (regardless of autism diagnosis) had more significant difficulties with social interaction and communication, reinforcing the crucial role face perception plays in social cognition.

These findings suggest a fascinating yet complex relationship between autism and prosopagnosia, illuminating the diverse ways our brains interpret social information. As our understanding deepens, these insights may inform more tailored support strategies for individuals who struggle with face recognition, enhancing their social interactions and overall quality of life.

Sources:

Weigelt, S., Koldewyn, K., & Kanwisher, N. (2012). Face identity recognition in autism spectrum disorders: A review of behavioral studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 36(3), 1060-1084.

Wilson CE, Brock J, Palermo R. (2017) Attention to social stimuli and facial identity recognition skills in autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 61(10), 939-951.

[davestridernb]

Watching The Giver made me realize how much I depend on colors to recognize people.

[faceblind-awareness]

when I get two people mixed up

Dad: The only thing those two have in common is that they both have hair.

Me: .........but it's the SAME hair...

[ponybalderdasheryarchive]

Nice addition!

Yup, my experience involves being able to see individual pieces and being able to say “yes that is a face” but not being able to look at the whole and say “yes that is YOUR face”

So in character design, I’m pretty good at seeing each individual piece and being able to tell if they look harmonious together

And if I exaggerate just the right pieces and when I look at it as a whole, it’s recognizable to even ME, then I know I did good.

It’s actually a benefit

And it feels good to concentrate on the small details

Oddly enough though, my more human characters tend to have more subtle differences. I’m not sure why that is, maybe I overcompensate.

[ponybalderdasheryarchive]

So I finally understand the ‘Picasso’ thing

When I was in drawing class I was told by separate people for multiple projects that my drawings look like Picasso’s work

Now that might seem a little insulting, but the drawings literally look like Picasso’s blue period, before he was purposefully messing with perspective and was just painting portraits.

Albeit with a stylistic streak.

My class, teacher and I all unanimously agreed that I just drew this way because I usually draw with a cartoon flair.

But the ‘Picasso’ thing still bugged me. Because I was not intending to be stylistic. This wasn’t me adding flair. I was painfully trying to make things perfectly realistic, and they looked fantastic to me while I was doing them.

Not only that, but my detail work got pretty good. I could draw hair with perfect shadows, shiny and soleful eyes, and skin with malleable form.

But then someone would say ‘the eyes are huge again’ and I would faceplant in frustration.

You know why?

Because I see faces, in fact probably the whole world, as a collection of pieces. I don’t see the fact as a whole until I’ve known the person for ages.

So when I start to draw an eye, I MAGNIFY on that eye. And it doesn’t look un proportioned because in my head it’s like “chin, yup. Eye, yup. They exist and thus are good”. I draw the eye within a space that seems basically right, but forget about that space because it is important. All that matters is that the eye looks accurate.

Because to me the pieces are the important part, and if they exist together within any proportion, they make up the face they belong to.

And now I wonder if Picasso was face-blind

[discountbinninja-deactivated201]

On Heartthrobs and Face Blindness

Most of the time, I maintain that I am pretty lightly face blind.  I have coping mechanisms, I can recognize some people pretty well, I can generally recognize you if you take off your jacket, I can spot a few features here and there…

Then there’s some matter of the latest “hot actor” and everybody drooling over them.  And I go look them up and see three photos and it takes me a while to figure out it’s three photos of the same guy.

And it’s stressful to the point of physical nausea.  I can’t get a crush on this, he looks like three different people here.  I can’t spot him in movies to geek about him except he’s probably that token black guy right there, right?  His voice isn’t all that standout so I can’t spot him by that, either.  Sometimes there is literally no indicator that I am looking at someone that isn’t CGI.

You’ve probably figured out who I’m talking about by now.  I don’t mind.

I feel sick.  I’m upset and I feel like a failure and I’m not even sure why.  I’ve stopped watching most movies unless I’m there for some other reason.  I don’t want someone to ask me some awkward question about the actors, I don’t want to sit half-blindly through and occasionally ask “who’s that one?” while my companions are pulled out of immersion.

And I’m just reminded that it’s possible for someone to be so markedly different to everybody else, but so incredibly unremarkable to me, and there’s something wrong with that.

meh.  probably just the social anxiety acting up.  feel free to ignore this.

[prosoprobs]

You know the feeling when everyone thinks of you as an uneducated dumbass when staring blankly at a picture of Obama and guessing it's Eddie Murphy? Confusing Martin Luther King Jr with Kanyee West and then looking like an impenitent racist when standing up for yourself: "well they're both black and..." :D

I feel you.

[faceblind-awareness]

I once thought keanu reeves was a "white george takei" in one of those famous faces tests. You feel so helpless and racist at the same time. Not a great feeling, eh?

[damienhexcodeblack]

Prosopagnosia

So one time I went to ortho for a check up on my braces, and I hadn’t been there in two year, so my profile was before I got hardcore hit by puberty. When I logged in and saw the old profile photo It looked like nothing like me so I complained to the receptionist that my photo was replaced with some chubby Hispanic kid.

No, that chubby faced Hispanic kid was actually a chubby faced, very tan, and very polish me.

[ceahying-blog]

For like the past 2 weeks I thought I was Skyping with 2 different people because one week they wore their hair down and it was brown, and then they dyed it and then I thought they were different and omg

I can’t tell anyone apart anymore, my life is a lie, and I need therapy

[ceahying-blog]

prosopagnosiacs in KC or general Missouri area hit me uppp i could legit use some friends that understand this

[err-anthea]

Prosopagnosia /ˌprɒsəpæɡˈnoʊʒə/ (Greek: “prosopon” = “face”, “agnosia” = “not knowing”), also called face blindness, is a cognitive disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize faces is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing (e.g., object discrimination) and intellectual functioning (e.g., decision making) remain intact.

(source)

[codeman38]

So I was invited to take the Cambridge Face Memory Test online as part of Harvard’s face-blindness study, and I did that tonight.

I haven’t gotten news of the actual results yet, but… I’m pretty sure that they were below normal. Seriously, there were two target faces that I could not even remember, because they were so generic and non-distinctive.

Also, two of the target faces reminded me vaguely of Daniel Radcliffe. I had a hard enough time telling them apart from each other, but ironically, it might have increased my chances of identifying which of three faces was part of the set of targets. (That is, unless there was a third Radcliffe-looking guy who was used as a confound, in which case I was completely out of luck.)

[faceblind-awareness]

When I did it I thought I did much better than I expected, and then my results put me in the bottom 3%, so it'll be very interesting to see how you do!

[astitchintimetravel]

listening to people complain about having relatives they don’t recognize talk to them during the holiday season and just thinking

you don’t even know the struggle until your mom tells you afterward that “that’s your fucking aunt!”

[winterwashere]

I hate being faceblind.

Some dude just spoke to me in the elevator and he was really nice and seemed to know me and I had absolutely no idea who he was. His voice did sound very familiar but nothing about his appearance was. Who are you sir? Are we friends? Do you want to be friends? Come baaaack. I wanted to ask but I panicked and just left on my floor as planned but damn it. This is why I have like three friends. It’s this. I hope he didn’t pick up on how confused I was and get all insulted. I tried to play it cool. I probably failed because I am the opposite of cool.

Ugh.

[faceblind-awareness]

I've started being extremely open about my proso, and it's actually working out OK. People think i'm weird though, but I've even had one or two people come up to me and re-introduce themselves. Maybe something to try, if you don't mind being socially unusual?

[severussnake-deactivated2023070]

OHHH SHIT I JUST CHECKED IMDB AND REALIZED THAT THE DUDE WHO PLAYS BOGGS LOOKED FAMILIAR TO ME BC HE IS REMY DANTON FROM HOUSE OF CARDS

I GOTTA REWATCH THAT SHOW ASAP IF I’M FORGETTING FACES THIS FAST OMG

[disability-positivity]

Hello! Your blog is really great and it's helped me a lot, but I wanted to ask.. My parents have thought ever since I was younger that I may have some form of either autism or aspergers, and when I told them about my face blindness they presumed it was part of my presumed autism. However, through research and tests I feel it might be more serious? Maybe prosopagnosia? because it's really bad... I can't recognise anyone out of context, not even my parents (Proso-Anon 1/?)

(Proso Anon 2/2) I can’t recognize anyone if I don’t know what they’ll be wearing, or if they have very outlandish hair or something else overly recognizable. It makes it very hard to talk to people because I never know who I’m talking to if I meet them outside of a routine or familiar place. I don’t know if I should presume it’s an autistic thing or if I should talk to a doctor or something about maybe having prosopagnosia? I just don’t know how severe it has to be…

Hi! And thank you. :)

Sorry it took so long for me to get to this one! Face blindness isn’t something I have much personal experience with, so I had to go do some research first. (This is a good thing. I love research!) Disclaimer: for those of you who do experience face blindness, please correct me if I have something wrong, and feel free to add to the conversation! 

My understanding is that “face blindness” is simply a less clinical term for prosopagnosia. And, while there is no direct link between autism and prosopagnosia, it is something that many (though not all) autistic people experience and it varies in severity from person to person. 

Talking to other autistic people who experience face blindness might help you find work-arounds or ways to compensate for not recognizing people, if that’s something you want. 

-Foxx

[faceblind-awareness]

Yep, when I got tested for proso they also made me do a short questionnaire to identify autistic traits I might have - apparently people exist who exhibit problems with facial recognition, but when they are tested they are fine at it, they just fail at the more "social" side of it or whatever (I'm not autistic so forgive me if that phrasing is bad). Very interesting.

[w0rthless-girlthing-deactivated]

'random' person: heyyy!! Karis!! *waving*

me: oh, hi.. uh.. uh.. hello, you! you’re um, you! yeah, I know you! hi :D (>_>)