Proso Probs

A blog dedicated to Prosopagnosia and the problems of face blindness.

[prosoprobs]

Should prosopagnosics be excluded from go-no-go studies that use facial expressions?  Should they be excluded from IAT studies that use faces?  Are our data valid?  These are some thoughts.

[totallyindeterminate]

Sometimes posts like these confuse me, but they get me researching.  So, for the facial expressions one, I think no for congenital and yes for acquired (I hadn’t realized there was a difference with this part, but there really really is, which I guess is why I didn’t see why prosopagnosia should disqualify anyone from that).

For the second, I’ll admit I don’t know a lot about those studies, but it looks like someone did a study of 1 with acquired prosopagnosia, take the results for what you will, and certainly I’d want to see a bigger study and have it broken down to CP vs AP vs control

[prosoprobs]

Sometimes I just worry that we have experimental measures that rely too heavily on facial processing, but we don’t take into account that 2.5% of the population is essentially face blind.  I’ve wondered how we may see null results in some studies because of this, or some people may skew results into rejecting the null when there was an extraneous variable causing individual differences.  But it’s something I’ve thought of more and more as I further learn about cognition research that is 100% facial processing and never has any type of pre-screening for prosopagnosia.

[prosoprobs]

Should prosopagnosics be excluded from go-no-go studies that use facial expressions?  Should they be excluded from IAT studies that use faces?  Are our data valid?  These are some thoughts.

[prosoprobs]

When people leave my life, I still remember their voices very clearly, however, their facial features start to blur, until there is nothing left to be recognized. Our past conversations haunt me, but at least I don't have to make eye contact with them in my mind's eye while they explain to me how awful I am.

Oh man, I suppose face blindness can be a plus in that, but I wish I could give you a hug.  It sounds like you’re going through a lot. :(

[prosoprobs]

Oh, man, I just found out I'm face blind and it makes so much sense and explains so much and I just need someone to know how much having a name for my experiences is helping me!!!! I thought I was just an idiot and I wasn't trying hard enough to remember people because I can recognize some people so obviously I don't have a problem, right? But no, no, I do have a problem and it's a spectrum and I feel less broken and less alone for the first time

Awww, I’m sending lots of hugs your way.  There’s something so powerful about getting a label or name to a problem to find that you aren’t alone and that what you are experiencing is valid and real.  Hopefully you can start to learn some tricks to better identifying the people around you now that you know you have Prosopagnosia.  And if not that, at least you can gain a better understanding of who you are.  Best of luck!

[prosoprobs]

Random story time! One year I became buddies with a guy in one of my classes and the main thing I used to identify him was his hair, because it was SUPER long. The next year we were in a class again, except he had cut his hair short so it took me MONTHS to figure out it was the same person. He was a good sport about it though. Oops!

I feel you, dude.  This is what used to happen to me and my coworkers all of the time until I just finally gave up.

[weavemama]

HOLY SHIT

[prosoprobs]

Another study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in April, found that mathematicians had “reduced activity in the visual areas of the brain involved in facial processing,” Jordana Cepelewicz wrote for Scientific American at the time. “This could mean that the neural resources required to grasp and work with certain math concepts may undercut—or ‘use up’—some of the brain’s other capacities.”

What Math Looks Like in the Mind

[prosoprobs]

Figures like this keep popping up in my facial processing readings, and I’m just not prepared for the confusion.

[prosoprobs]

So you mentioned that you're asexual and I was wondering if you've met many other prosos that also identify on the ace/aromantic scale? I've never been very interested in relationships and since realising i have prosopagnosia, I'v been wondering how much a role my inability to recognise people has played in this. Crushing/flirting with someone isn't so fun when you can't even picture them in you head or remember them when you meet again haha :P Awesome blog by the way!

Hi there! I've heard a decent amount of people in the proso community day that they're asexual, though I don't know if there are any statistics on this. It would be interesting to see some hard data. But yeah, not only is it no fun to flirt when face blind, but I would imagine it would be down right terrifying!

[prosoprobs]

I went and saw the new batman vs superman movie and i was SO LOST the entire time cuz both characters are white with brown hair and angular faces i literally couldnt tell them apart

Dude, I feel ya.  I’m so done with casting characters exactly the same.  This is just another reason why multi-racial casting is SUPER IMPORTANT.

[prosoprobs]

Is it still prosopagnosia in my case? I think I perceive my family, friends, and partner easily and normally, and also most people I have regular prolonged contact with e.g. work or studies. But among acquaintance-type friends I wouldn't recognise some in an unusual context, and acquaintances I have no hope recalling. Usually it takes a whole film for me to work out who everyone is, but by the end of it, it's likely I'd recognise some of the more distinctive actors from, say, a picture?

It’s certainly possible.  As I’ve been taught, prosopagnosia (and the ability to recognise faces in general) runs on a sliding scale.  There isn’t a strict dichotomy as to whether someone is face blind or not.  Rather, there is an entire spectrum of abilities when it comes to facial recognition.

[prosoprobs]

So I read that everyone you see in your dreams is someone you've seen in real life at some point because your brain can't create/imagine a human face they've never seen before and sometimes it's like people you've seen at the end grocery store a year ago. How does that work with faceblind people? I'm faceblind but I don't ever remember. Is that just a myth anyways?

I’m fairly certain that it’s a myth.  Doing an initial search shows that your brain is capable of making entirely new faces or even mixing faces together to create new ones.

In my dreams, everyone is faceless, which isn’t surprising, but I still know who everyone is in the dream.  Your brain really doesn’t need to see a face in a dream to know who someone is.  Sometimes, your brain just knows who someone is in the dream; it just gets the general idea.

[prosoprobs]

Hello! Great blog!I've been reading many stories here. Once that interested me when where you talking about attractiveness. Will it be possible for a prosopagonosic to find a attractive to a person several times without noticing? For example, you go to a party and you meet someone and find her/him attractive. Then you meet the same person at another party and for some reason there is something different about herm and you find him/her attractive but don't recognize him/

Hmmm...  I’m going to put this one out to my followers, because I’m actually asexual, so attraction isn’t something I really feel anyway.  I’m sorry that I don’t have a good answer for you!

[victoriousvocabulary]

PROSOPAGNOSIA

[noun]

a disorder of face perception where the ability to recognise faces is impaired, while the ability to recognise other objects may be relatively intact.

Etymology: from Greek prósōpon, “face” + agnōsía, “not knowing”.

[Jana Heidersdorf - Unmasked]

[houseoftombombadil]

It’s just one of those days where I really fucking hate that I’m prosopagnosic. Some days, it’s like it doesn’t exist at all; I begin to wonder if I’ve made up the whole thing. I’ve adapted so well. How could anything be wrong? And then the days stretch on where I grasp and pull at a face, trying so damned hard to see, and I know without a doubt that it’s all real and all permanent and altogether torturous.

[sam-keeper]

You know who should REALLY be the target of complaints about Sameface in art?

Actual famous actors.

HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE TELL THEM APART THEY ARE ALL INTERCHANGEABLY BLAND AND PRETTY

[prosoprobs]

this question is probably weird I'm pretty sure I dont have prosopagnosia but maybe something similar? I can remember faces but its not the same in my head as in real life Like i can look at my mom and be like 'thats my mom' but something will feel off about her face like i have an image of her in my head that doesnt match her face but right when i look at her i cant remember the image in my head only that the face i see isnt what is in my head? I dunno just wondering if you might know something

Hi there! That's definitely not a weird question. Facial recognition is believed to run on a spectrum, meaning that perhaps you may not have prosopagnosia, but you could still fall on the spectrum as being poor with faces.