Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion recognizing people and faces

DS6 remembers everything, except he seems to get people confused all the time. If we know people well it isn't an issue too much, but if not he gets people all mixed up. Like this weekend we went to a school function and 2 boys from his 4th grade class (he is in this class every day for about an hour and a half a day) came up to him and enthusiastically said hi to him by name. One even put his arms up either to give DS6 a hug or high five or something. DS just looked at them and walked by. no response at all. I went up to him and asked who they were and he said "I don't know." I said they must know him because they said hi to him by name and clearly knew him. Later they came up and talked to him and he responded a little better and at least acknowledged them. This has happened before, once with the girl that sits next to him in a class. He had no idea who she was. He had been in the class for a week already. Also, if he sees someone he knows well out of context, in a different setting sometimes he has no clue who they are but will tell me "they look just like _______" I will have to tell them that they are that person. It is very odd. Other times he has talked to people thinking they were someone else because in his mind they look similar. He isn't really like this with good friends or anything if he sees them regularly, but still it is quite strange. He is such a detail oriented person, I just find it weird that he doesn't pick up on distinguishing characteristics. Any other gifted kids like this?

D15 is STILL like this (and a soph in high school now!). She does have a non-verbal learning disability, so maybe this is part of that. She wasn't sure which set of grandparents was which (we saw them 3-4 times a year when she was small) for years. And she can't tell me which kids are in her classes (small school, ~75/graduating class) even a whole quarter into the year except a few of her good friends.

I'm not sure if DS8 is like this, but I know for a fact that I am! I have a terrible time with faces until I've really had a chance to get to know someone and attach a name to them. And it really amazes me when I watch something like America's Most Wanted and people identify someone down the street as the guy they saw the mug shot of on TV. I just don't make that connection from the 2d shot to the 3d face; I have no idea how anyone can identify someone that way!

My ex always called people by name, and he was frequently wrong about the name--I finally convince him that a greeting should not be, "hi, Bob" but instead "hi, how are you?" because it was most likely Frank, not Bob, and he wouldn't embarrass himself that way.

My DS8 is totally like that since preschool. It happened so many times when people are greeting to him and he has no idea who the persons are. He even didn't recognize his summer camp teacher (he spent 1hr session per day with students) after 4 WEEKS. He played with some kids (not in his class) many many times at playground and he still doesn't know their names. Even DD6 knows those kids better than him. I think he is poor on recognizing people and he has no interest to pay attention on social situation.

I definitely have a mild form of this (face blindness) - I recognise people I am very familiar with, but if I only see them occasionally, or they are out of context, it's a problem. I totally blame my dad - he was just the same I tend to remember people by hair or skin colour, whether they wear glasses or not etc. I worked for 10 summers at a camp for kids with disabilities - one of my duties was assessing the new staff and assigning campers to them - I had a terrible time remembering who was who, and usually had to hear them talk (we had alot of international staff)before I knew who they were. I never had the problem with the kids. With ds, I did notice once that in a soccer session, with kids he wasn't familiar with, that he would pair up with either the Asian or Hispanic kids (there were only a couple in the group of mainly blond haired boys) - maybe that was his way of being sure he remembered who his partner was ?

I'm prosopagnosic too, and think DS probably is too. (Don't get too excited: it's generally underrecognised, so having a number of people here doesn't really suggest it's GT-related - although wouldn't that be interesting? I always wondered whether I was doing something else with those neurons :-)

DS isn't like that and neither is DH. But I have a big dose of this. DH says it's because I don't look people in the face, so I never really "see" them to begin with. It's so much a part of my life that I expect other people not to recognize me as well, but it doesn't seem to be the case. So when someone comes up to me to say hi, I usually feel embarrassed before I switch to that, "Uh, yes, and sorry, where did we meet?"

I have always had that problem too, now I am reading it is Aspergers related which seems to also be somehow GT related

I think that's exactly why I have this problem. I don't look at people closely, and I don't pay attention. I've taken to asking, "was that you that ... " when I can't remember who the person was, which makes it sound like a bit of vagueness about the situation rather than not knowing who they are.

It has been suspected of being linked to Asperger's, but AIUI in fact that idea has been quite carefully investigated and found to be false.

For me it's definitely not that I don't look at people. In fact there's an interesting online test for prosopagnosia (also tied in to research) which will let you see how you do in a test situation so you can be sure you pay attention. Try the Online Cambridge Online Face Memory Test from here:
http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/index.php

Apparently, I do have the "doesn't pay attention" problem.

I just redid this - in fact, I think they've changed it considerably since I last did it. I got 46/72 or 64%, putting me just below threshold. Which is interesting, as it means I must (on this test) have considerable "blindsight" - I thought I was doing much more straight guessing than that indicates.

Guess I don't have prosopagnosia. But I learned a new vocabulary word!


That was fun. Thanks ColinsMum!

Val

One of the women in our homeschooling community has prosopagnosia. It definitely isn't the same as when you don't pay attention to people. She has to work really hard to recognise people using little cues and trick based on their hair and clothing style etc. I'm so glad she explained the condition so that I can be sensitive and make sure I say hello directly and if she looks puzzled I can tell her who I am. I can only imagine how overwhelming large groups must be!

Yes - I'm even tempted to say "of course". To follow the plot of such a thing you have to be able to recognise the same character in a new context even though they may be wearing different clothes, in different lighting etc. - directors assume you can do this, and it's exactly what we can't do. Even subtitles don't help (although distinctive voices, walks etc. often do).

Hmmm, I've known for a long time that I have a problem recognizing faces. I read about being 'face blind' a few years ago and learned it's an identified trait. I took the test linked above and got 60%.
I'm pretty good about hearing differences in voices, so it's not too much of a problem. Or I can sometimes recognize their walk or mannerisms. That leads to staring at people as they approach, and sometimes they're just walking by so they give me a sideways glance.
It's a pain to watch a movie unless there are few actors and are very different. I don't bother learning actors names because I won't recognize them in other films.

very interesting, I definitely don't think DS is truly face-blind...I do think he just doesn't pay attention sometimes. He ran into his T-ball coach from last year a week ago at a school event which is completely out of place for him to see her, and he walked up to her and said "I think I am going to play baseball this year" So sometimes he does pay attention I guess.

That's a cool test. I got a 90% on it. I was doing great at first and then after a while I knew I was getting some wrong as they all start to run together. In real life I am pretty good with names and faces.

I just came across this article about face blindness.

Oliver Sacks has the problem and has written a book about it and other visual problems.

Val

Interesting! Thanks for pointing that out. Now I know one thing I'm getting for Solstice ;-)

I'm reviving this old thread because during recent years, many links on face blindness or Prosopagnosia (aka Facial Agnosia) have appeared on the internet, including this article from medicine.net. The TV show "60 Minutes" also did a segment on being face blind.

Unfortunately, when a person does not recognize others society may chalk it up to a personality shortcoming such as a lack of interest in others, being unfriendly, cold, distant, or indifferent.

Here is a link to a current thread on Aphantasia, or inability to visualize. On that thread, several posters have mentioned face-blindness. It is possible that the two may be somewhat related; It describes experiencing an inability to visualize anything including faces, and how some compensate with other skills in order to recognize people.

The people with aphantasia seem to recognize other people when they see them. I'll happily speculate that they store the images of faces in their minds but can't access them in order to create an image (e.g. their image creation software doesn't work).

This isn't the same process as recognizing Mary when they see her. So perhaps in this situation, they access images of faces the same way that unaffected people do. If I meet my sister, I don't have to "recall" an image of her to recognize her. I just know it's her. Faceblind people can't do this (but can they see an image of the beach in their minds? Is there a difference in their ability to create an image in their minds compared to unaffected people?).

Going down the path a bit, what if someone with aphantasia meets an old high school classmate 25 years later and the person looks different? Is their ability to recognize this person the same as a "normal" person's, or is it better or worse? Does it depend on multiple factors?

The Facebook author said that he can't remember stuff that he had done. I wonder if photos or verbal/written descriptions would stimulate his memories (i.e., I'm wondering if the memories are there, but he can't access them the usual way). Would hearing the songs from the musical he forgot he saw help him remember he'd been there? Dunno.

I just took the test and got 68%--seems consistent with mild face blindness.

I gave up when i only got one of the first 20 or so correct. The thing was though i knew Jennifer Anniston was the girl from friends but not her name. In me i think it is actual face blindness plus not looking at faces. I wonder if it coukd be improved with drawing the face lessons? I have an added problem that I pair people in my mind. I may know you are Sue or Mary but not which. To be fair some of them i was only vaguely familiar with what tbey looked like - we didn't have TV when Reagan was round and not being in the US i wasn't that interested in some of the other.

Thanks, indigo, for bringing up this thread.

I believe DS has some form of face blindness. Earlier this year, at park day, he took a spare set of clothes with him. His plan was to say hi to his friends, sneak into the bathroom and change clothes, and pretend he was someone else. He was convinced his friends would not recognize him in his new clothes. He recognizes his close friends and family, but not people he sees infrequently (but frequently enough that he *should* recognize them). But he also can't remember names very well, so it's hard to know if he doesn't recognize the face or remember the associated name, or perhaps both. Needless to say, this adds to his general anxiety in social situations.

I asked him this morning, and he does not have aphantasia. I'll have him look at the face blindness test.

I posted this link on the current related thread on aphantasia. It includes a questionnaire on mental visualization, which is probably a closely-related skill.

http://www.eugencpopa.ro/wp-content/uploads/Afantazia-.pdf

This sounds like more of a global retrieval deficit, since it's not restricted to faces. Close friends and family are overlearned, and replete with context cues, which is probably why he can recognize them.

I don't think DD has aphantasia but she does have retrieval issues (for example, poor fluency when it comes to math facts and handwriting) and she has been known to get people's names mixed up, faces, etc. Sometimes she will see one of her uncles and think it's a different uncle (people that we see once or twice per year).

My DS "got in trouble" (not BIG but little trouble) with a teacher earlier this year because some classmates were at an exterior door, wanting to come in, and DS wouldn't open the door. He said he didn't recognize them so he didn't open the door, as they've been instructed.

He swore up and down he didn't recognize them. His teacher found this a dubious claim, because those classmates have been seated near him all year.

DS says he "doesn't pay attention to things like that." I wondered, then, if this was a real thing, or if he was just being a pain.

What is it called when you don't actually notice people to recognize them? Like, when you're out in a public place and you don't even see someone until they say hi to you, and you look at them, and then you recognize them?

Like when you don't see them until they snap their fingers in your face? I have always put that down to inattention.

Are you thinking of Prosopagnosia? That's usually really severe and due to brain damage. Other than that, it's just focusing on relevant data in the surroundings AKA spacing out or going on auto-pilot.

Agree, that's probably just being a space case. I'm sure it's a feature of being ADHD-inattentive as well, though. And in my husbands case, it's being severely shortsighted even with contact lenses!

Yes, he has trouble remembering names of everyday objects sometimes; thanks for giving me the name of this problem. But the fact that it didn't occur to him that others would recognize his face makes me think that he doesn't recognize faces very well.

That makes sense! Yes, I was just thinking about the normal inattentiveness. It seems to also coincide with sensory overload -- maybe a learned ability to tune things out to reduce input? I don't think I ever understood inattentiveness before quite how I've been learning about it on this board.

This is not correct, as seen in this thread.

Adding to this old thread... a new report on a study regarding prosopagnosia (face blindness) - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230227132443.htm

I suspect a slow decline affects some of us, just like the cognitive decline of senile dementia. I’ve just attended a thirty year Uni reunion and I had no trouble recognising just about everyone there (about one hundred and ten old classmates from a graduating class of around two hundred), whereas as hard as I try, I frequently have trouble recognising my kids’ teachers and their friends’ parents when they greet me in the shops & streets (out of context). They’ll look familiar, but I just can’t place them or remember their name. These are people I’ve only met in the last decade, so it appears I am not as good at imprinting memory as I once was, but retrieval of old memories seems to be working well, which fits with well known difference between old and new memories. Unfortunately, I’m easier to recognise and my kids are well known in the community, so I often feel terrible and try to make up for it by being very polite.

FWIW, unless one has an exceptional memory for faces (which I do not), this (frequent nodding and smiling) is an occupational hazard for those of us in my profession (as, I suspect, in several others), as meeting me professionally is a much more emotionally significant occurrence for my clients than meeting them is for me. Since I live in the same community where I work, I often run across people I have met once or a handful of times who greet me by name--and I have only the vaguest of impressions who they are ("parent of one of my students" does not narrow it down much). So I'm with you, Eagle Mum--lots of conscious friendliness and vague inquiries after the wellbeing of their families!

The capacity to recognise a person by looking simply at their face or a photograph of their face is known as facial recognition. Extreme variations in lighting, viewing angle, and distance encountered in daily life have no impact on this capacity.The researchers found that human facial recognition abilities vary greatly through a variety of recall and identification tests on volunteers. According to the survey, most people can name between 1,000 and 10,000 acquaintances, family members, coworkers, and celebrities by face . .

Here's another interesting tidbit of information on prosopagnosia or difficulty with facial recognition, sometimes referred to as "face blindness."
https://neuroscientificallychallenged.com/glossary/fusiform-gyrus

The article above includes links to other related articles on this website, Neuroscientifically Challenged by Marc Dingman, PhD
https://neuroscientificallychallenged.com