The Prosopagnosia (face recognition blindness) thread

[zia Giovi]

Wow there is a lot to go through! Thank u Giovy I'm waiting they accept my request for the proxy service from the library and I'll surely look for some of these! Thanks again

 

You are welcome, and good luck!

 

Marylin, Tiibet thanks for sharing your experiences.

I am not directly involved in this desease, but I think that raising awareness is the only way to help suffering people to be accepted and to help healthy people to value their own lives at full (and not constantly moaning because of minor problems).

And being quite an introverted person, I admire that you both openly write about your lives and your families!

[sarik31]

Thanks Kezza

 

& of course

 

Thanks Marilyn for open this thread!!

You've done wonderful with the first post I think you explained even better than what i could have done.

 

Hi everyone I'm Francesca, I'm going to get a college degree in psycology hopefully the next september, and I'm just starting to write this thesis on Prosopagnosia as my final essay i truly hope this topic may get many people interest. Here it is a sample of the points about how I thought I'd set this essay:

 

-Alessia,prosopagnosia, Agnosia: differences

-Prosopagnosia appercettiva, associative Prosopagnosia, developmental Prosopagnosia

-Face blindness disorder, the problem of recognizing faces

-clinical cases

-how to live everyday life who suffer from prosopagnosia

-conclusions

-bibliography

 

I will include the face blindess disorder test too and I have some material in englisg to post if it's interesting for anyone.

 

In the last point s I'm going to resume the experience of everyday people with this kind of disorder, something that goes beyond the standard clinical cases, also because the research material involves most people with brain damages or other disorders that lead to Prosopagnosia, that's also why the study about it are so recent.

 

Anyway i truly hope this project will took off!

 

I'm also going to spread the words among my fb Mfc friends and on the italian thread

 

 

Sweetie I am learning something new

[tiibet]

Marylin, Tiibet thanks for sharing your experiences.

I am not directly involved in this desease, but I think that raising awareness is the only way to help suffering people to be accepted and to help healthy people to value their own lives at full (and not constantly moaning because of minor problems).

And being quite an introverted person, I admire that you both openly write about your lives and your families!

 

Oh, I'm actually a very introvert person, too. I just also think that raising awareness is the best way to help so I've always openly talked about these issues. I'm extremely proud of my son - exactly how he is

[Marilyn Mastin]

Thank you so much, Marilyn. You are very brave and I can't even imagine what you have been through growing up when this condition wasn't recognized as it is these days.

 

My son got his Asperger diagnosis when he was 6 yo before starting his school. I can remember his first school day like yesterday, the first years at school were very hard for him even with a full-time personal assistant as he had to learn so many social skills people usually take for granted. He has done amazing progress since then and is now a smart teenager who is finishing his school with good grades in two weeks and starting a high school in August.

 

I burst in tears every time when I think about his progress and growing up (it's very emotional for me as a mother) and feel deep gratitude that we have been so incredibly lucky to have good, experienced doctors and understanding, supportive teachers to help us during these years.

School can be so hard for anyone who is "different" in some way. I too had problems at school and even though I have a high IQ, I didn't stay on and take qualifications, because I couldn't wait to leave.

I became a bench worker, assembling electrical devices, and for a while I was a pressure gauge tester. I was good at my jobs because I used to be concentrating hard on what I was doing. I was completely focused. Because of this, people didn't bother with me much. They thought I was unsociable. No one really disliked me, I just wasn't one-of-the-crowd.

I never spoke about my face blindness to my colleagues, because I didn't think anyone else had the same problem. I thought it was just me.

I think, these days, its a bit better for young people with difficulties, because things aren't so hidden, and there is more knowledge, through TV, and the internet.

I hope things go really well for your son, and for you too.

[FralovesMika]

Hey there everyone I don't have time to reply to all this eve, i'll do it tomorrow

Anyway i did a paperwork on what we talked about until now on this thread and my relator liked it very much, infact we decided to modify the structure and some sections of my thesis, i'll put this paperwork about the thread at the beginning and then moving forward from that, exposing the condition and all the correlated matters.

I've a couple of books and I'll have to resume some topic for the different sections and decide if i'll introduce any articles from the research literature, anyway it goes all in a essay that should be less than 40 pages, so i'll have to resume a lot because I wrote 8 pages only for what we talked about until now but I'm happy on how this is going!

So thanks everyone for support and this great discussion, especially Marylin for sharing her experiences

 

See you tomorrow, nighty 'night

Edited May 14, 2014 by FralovesMika

[Christine]

I studied neuroscience at uni so I find this really fascinating. It is amazing to me that we don't just remember the things we see but that we have a specific function in our brain for remembering human faces.

 

Part of me can almost understand what it's like because I do have trouble visualizing complete faces in a way that I don't have when visualizing other objects. But I almost never have trouble recognizing a face when I see it.

 

What I have a hard time imagining though is why one can't focus on facial features as individual objects and remember them that way in the same way you can remember that someone is tall, has curly hair and wears glasses or a hat. Eyes are quite distinct features on people and I can't imagine not being able to distinguish between people that I know well even if I could only see their eyes and not their whole faces.

 

And also voices. I can understand that recognizing voices doesn't eliminate the social problem. If you were totally blind then people you know would not approach you expecting you to recognize them before they spoke. So you're still going to have situations where you walk by people who think you are stuck up or they just smile at you and expect recognition. But I can't imagine having a conversation with someone and not knowing who they were, even if I was completely blind. When I first started working in an office back in the 80s there was no email so you talked to everyone by phone all the time. People would call and say hi and I would know who they were even if I'd never met them or seen a photo of them before so it's not linked at all to facial recognition for me.

 

Anyway it's been interesting reading and I love learning what it is like from Marilyn's perspective.

 

Oliver Sacks is a famous neurologist and has face blindness himself:

 

k5bvnXYIQG8

 

664vzbwkc0M

[tiibet]

Thanks for the links, Cristine! I like it how the neurologist describes prosopagnosia in such a natural way. I don't see it as a disease (even I know it can also be caused by an illness or injury), I rather see it that people are different. We are good at some things and have difficulties in some other things. My son has never said prosopagnosia is a problem to him, actually he usually never even mentions it, but as he was tested for it at younger age and as I know he so often can't recognize faces for example from photos I know that recognizing faces is for him much more difficult than it is for people in average.

 

He has learnt to cope with it really well and sometimes I think things can be equally difficult for someone like me who has an extremely poor spatial thinking. I can't read maps, recognize places or find my way. I've been totally lost when doing my usual dog walking route to an opposite direction than normally (even done it probably thousands of times) and when going to my local library or restaurant (both less than 1 km from our home and places I go regularly). Driving a car is a nightmare for me, I can only drive 4-5 regular routes (I simply can't drive to anywhere else as I have no idea where to go because streets look always so similar) and sometimes I cry from frustration as I can't find my way out of from supermarkets or shopping centers.

 

Prosopagnosia can be really severe though, and it must the hardest if other people are not aware of it or don't take it seriously, especially for children who still need to find their everyday coping strategies and who need support. This is an interesting issue and made me read more about both face blindness and place blindness (different articles refer to topographic agnosia or directional/spatial dyslexia, not sure about the exact term for the latter one).

Edited May 15, 2014 by tiibet

[Marilyn Mastin]

I studied neuroscience at uni so I find this really fascinating. It is amazing to me that we don't just remember the things we see but that we have a specific function in our brain for remembering human faces.

 

Part of me can almost understand what it's like because I do have trouble visualizing complete faces in a way that I don't have when visualizing other objects. But I almost never have trouble recognizing a face when I see it.

 

What I have a hard time imagining though is why one can't focus on facial features as individual objects and remember them that way in the same way you can remember that someone is tall, has curly hair and wears glasses or a hat. Eyes are quite distinct features on people and I can't imagine not being able to distinguish between people that I know well even if I could only see their eyes and not their whole faces.

 

And also voices. I can understand that recognizing voices doesn't eliminate the social problem. If you were totally blind then people you know would not approach you expecting you to recognize them before they spoke. So you're still going to have situations where you walk by people who think you are stuck up or they just smile at you and expect recognition. But I can't imagine having a conversation with someone and not knowing who they were, even if I was completely blind. When I first started working in an office back in the 80s there was no email so you talked to everyone by phone all the time. People would call and say hi and I would know who they were even if I'd never met them or seen a photo of them before so it's not linked at all to facial recognition for me.

 

Anyway it's been interesting reading and I love learning what it is like from Marilyn's perspective.

 

Oliver Sacks is a famous neurologist and has face blindness himself:

 

k5bvnXYIQG8

 

664vzbwkc0M

I've often wondered why it is that I can't recognize a face, but can recognize a hairstyle or an item of clothing. It's a mystery, but the face blindness test does show celebrity faces, without the hair, or anything else, to give you a clue.

I didn't recognize Mika when I saw him in a woolly hat, but when he spoke, I knew it was him. I do rely on voices a lot, but sometimes even voices can be similar.

For example. I watch the hospital drama, Holby City, and there is a Scottish male nurse that I had no problem recognizing, because of his accent. But recently another Scottish character has been introduced, and for the life of me, I can't tell who's who. One character is married, the other isn't, so it's only when the married doctor talks about his wife, or the male nurse mentions the daughter he's had with another doctor, that I figure it out. But 5 minutes later I've mixed them up again.

But voices are something I do use a lot. I also do remember eye colour if I've had a chance to study the eyes. I don't recall the face in my mind, but I have told myself that, for example, Mika's eyes are brown. So that helps, but many people have Brown eyes, including me, and if two people are of similar colouring, the chances are, they have the same colour eyes.

It's quite confusing, even to explain the nuances of the condition. It's often linked to a bigger condition, like my Tuberous Sclerosis, which, over the years has worsened, so that now I can't work because of it. I don't know if anyone has Prosopagnosia on its own. Some acquire it after a stroke, and I think it must be worse for them, than for me, as they are older, and probably can't adapt so easily. I've always had it, so I'm used to coping with it.

[FralovesMika]

I hope everything is going well for you. I'm sure you're thesis will be brilliant!

 

I've found an interesting video. A stroke victim who developed Prosopagnosia.

She's very positive about it.

She didn't recognize herself in a mirror when out shopping.

I don't have that problem, because I tell myself each day, what I am wearing. It's the same technique I use for recognizing anyone else, like if I'm separated from Alan in a shop, I remember what he's wearing, and Alan is overweight, so that helps.

When I look at the mirror at home, I know it's me, because I'm looking at a mirror. I check my hair and clothes closely, and as far as I know, it works for me when I'm out of the home.

Some sufferers see an object and think it's a person. I don't, thank God.

Here is the video

http://findingstrengthtostandagain.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/how-are-you-spectator-monthly-news-for-ui-alumni-and-friends-the-university-of-iowa/

 

Thank you for this vid Marilyn, I've already wrote about it in the paperwork I presented, it was really beautiful and added something more to all what we talked about until now, I'm happy the way this is going and I'm sure it'll turn a kick-ass job! Of course thanks to you and all the other people who took part in this tread

 

Good luck Francesca.

This is all quite a journey for me too.

It's made me look at my life and realize about the coping strategies I've developed, without even realizing they were strategies.

For example. At the beginning of the thread I said I don't have a problem recognizing myself in a mirror. But Alan has always noticed that I spend a lot of time looking in the mirror at home, and stare into every mirror I pass, when I'm out with him and notice a mirror.

 

Since the thread started, I've been conscious of doing this, and I've realised it is a coping strategy. I'm checking myself, to see what I'm wearing and what my hair is like today. Because I've had the condition all my life, I haven't always been conscious of the development of strategies, for me it's just normal behaviour. But now I realize that so many of my little quirks are actually ways of coping with my condition.

 

Yeah the strategies are the best part in it is so interesting and personal and make you look to the condition in a totally different perspective imo, I'll surely add your last part of this post too, it's surprising how many things you can discover about something even when it's been years you're facing it.

And it's also hard to find someone actually into it willing to share it and who can explain this in a such a detailed and precise way, really I'm very very glad we started this project together!

 

Hi everyone! This is an interesting thread. I've tried to read your discussion but haven't had time to write any comments before this, sorry about that. Wishing the best for your thesis, Francesca!

 

I'm familiar with this issue as my 15 yo son suffers from prosopagnosia. I realized it during his early years as it was obvious he could recognize our neighbour and their kids in their yard/garden but had no idea who they were when we met them at the supermarket or play ground further away (he connected them to their house). Similarly, he could recognize our close family but not for example his godfather or some other relatives and friends even met them regularly.

 

However, my son had a lot of autistic spectrum challenges so not recognizing faces was only one challenge among many other social difficulties (like not recognizing facial expression, tones or emotions, late talking, difficulties to communicate etc). At school he learnt to cover this difficulty and recognize people simply by learning to remember their hair styles, eye glasses, clothes etc.

 

He is intelligent and advanced in many other areas and has a very good memory so sometimes I forget how challenging and tiring it must be for him not be able to easily know who people are (for example after all these years he still can't recognize all his classmates if randomly met them somewhere) and I need to remind myself to be more understanding and to give him enough time to rest after meeting a lot of people.

 

Spreading awareness is the best way to help people with prosopagnosia, imo. If other people know someone suffers from this condition they can go and introduce themselves in new situations to avoid any misunderstandings. Good luck Francesca and thanks for sharing your experiences, Marilyn!

 

Thanks Nina for adding your son's experience too and partecipate in this thread it's another interesting aspects of this condition and I admire you for the attitude you have about it, I've known different children and adolescent with autistic spectrum disorder and i understand how hard it can be, but having a positive attitude and speak up about these syndromes it's the best thing we can do thank you again and can't wait to meet you again in Naples saturday, there's Pizza waiting for us, besides this guy on sunday

[FralovesMika]

Sweetie I am learning something new

 

You are more than welcome sweetheart

 

I studied neuroscience at uni so I find this really fascinating. It is amazing to me that we don't just remember the things we see but that we have a specific function in our brain for remembering human faces.

 

Part of me can almost understand what it's like because I do have trouble visualizing complete faces in a way that I don't have when visualizing other objects. But I almost never have trouble recognizing a face when I see it.

 

What I have a hard time imagining though is why one can't focus on facial features as individual objects and remember them that way in the same way you can remember that someone is tall, has curly hair and wears glasses or a hat. Eyes are quite distinct features on people and I can't imagine not being able to distinguish between people that I know well even if I could only see their eyes and not their whole faces.

 

And also voices. I can understand that recognizing voices doesn't eliminate the social problem. If you were totally blind then people you know would not approach you expecting you to recognize them before they spoke. So you're still going to have situations where you walk by people who think you are stuck up or they just smile at you and expect recognition. But I can't imagine having a conversation with someone and not knowing who they were, even if I was completely blind. When I first started working in an office back in the 80s there was no email so you talked to everyone by phone all the time. People would call and say hi and I would know who they were even if I'd never met them or seen a photo of them before so it's not linked at all to facial recognition for me.

 

Anyway it's been interesting reading and I love learning what it is like from Marilyn's perspective.

 

Oliver Sacks is a famous neurologist and has face blindness himself:

 

k5bvnXYIQG8

 

664vzbwkc0M

 

Thanks for these amazing vids and your partecipation in this thread Christine, I'll try to translate all what he says in the next days and add something to my essay for sure!

[Marilyn Mastin]

Thank you for this vid Marilyn, I've already wrote about it in the paperwork I presented, it was really beautiful and added something more to all what we talked about until now, I'm happy the way this is going and I'm sure it'll turn a kick-ass job! Of course thanks to you and all the other people who took part in this tread

 

 

 

Yeah the strategies are the best part in it is so interesting and personal and make you look to the condition in a totally different perspective imo, I'll surely add your last part of this post too, it's surprising how many things you can discover about something even when it's been years you're facing it.

And it's also hard to find someone actually into it willing to share it and who can explain this in a such a detailed and precise way, really I'm very very glad we started this project together!

 

 

 

Thanks Nina for adding your son's experience too and partecipate in this thread it's another interesting aspects of this condition and I admire you for the attitude you have about it, I've known different children and adolescent with autistic spectrum disorder and i understand how hard it can be, but having a positive attitude and speak up about these syndromes it's the best thing we can do thank you again and can't wait to meet you again in Naples saturday, there's Pizza waiting for us, besides this guy on sunday

I'm well jealous about Saturday and Sunday! Need videos guys.

Tongue is already hanging out.

This might be a good Time to mention that Alan and I are going to the Isle of Wight on Monday, for 5 days. I'll be taking my Kindle and the hotel has free WiFi, so providing I can figure out how to get onto it (my son set up the kindle at home for me) I should be able to post, but probably not as often while on holiday.

Fran. I've been really happy to do this. It's helping me a lot, just to talk about it with people who understand, or want to know about the condition.

God bless everyone on the thread. It's wonderful to talk with you all.

[FralovesMika]

I'm well jealous about Saturday and Sunday! Need videos guys.

Tongue is already hanging out.

This might be a good Time to mention that Alan and I are going to the Isle of Wight on Monday, for 5 days. I'll be taking my Kindle and the hotel has free WiFi, so providing I can figure out how to get onto it (my son set up the kindle at home for me) I should be able to post, but probably not as often while on holiday.

Fran. I've been really happy to do this. It's helping me a lot, just to talk about it with people who understand, or want to know about the condition.

God bless everyone on the thread. It's wonderful to talk with you all.

 

There will be a live streaming, If you check Naples thread I'm sure someone posted the link

Me too I won't be able to connect until late monday eve or tuesday I guess, so everyone enjoy this week end and see u next week

I'm glad and happy for every word you write Marilyn really, you make this project marvellous every other day, enjoy you holiday dear

[Marilyn Mastin]

There will be a live streaming, If you check Naples thread I'm sure someone posted the link

Me too I won't be able to connect until late monday eve or tuesday I guess, so everyone enjoy this week end and see u next week

I'm glad and happy for every word you write Marilyn really, you make this project marvellous every other day, enjoy you holiday dear

Thanks. I'll probably check in next week as there is WiFi in the hotel. Just not as often.

I'm really looking forward to going to the Isle of Wight again. I went with my family before Alan and I met. I loved it, and I'm sure Alan will too. It's a beautiful island. We're staying in Shanklin.

I'll look for the live stream link for tomorrow. Exciting times!

[Marilyn Mastin]

I'm back from holiday now. Just popped in to let you all know

[FralovesMika]

I'm back from holiday now. Just popped in to let you all know

 

Welcome back Marilyn! How's your holiday?

Obviously I'm back too, even if I'm still exhausted and next exams are approaching fast! I'm also writing like a mad to have all done soon, I'll try to translate some paragraphs to post eventually

By now i wrote the introduction and your personal statement on the condition, i collected all together the info from your posts and added an incipit this should be the opening of my essay if everything goes as planned, hope it does!

And by the end of july it has to be finished and all exam too this way i'll get my degree in september yes i like to complicate my life but for now i'm happy this way, for this project, this thread and everything in between, hope this will bring me luck

[Marilyn Mastin]

Welcome back Marilyn! How's your holiday?

Obviously I'm back too, even if I'm still exhausted and next exams are approaching fast! I'm also writing like a mad to have all done soon, I'll try to translate some paragraphs to post eventually

By now i wrote the introduction and your personal statement on the condition, i collected all together the info from your posts and added an incipit this should be the opening of my essay if everything goes as planned, hope it does!

And by the end of july it has to be finished and all exam too this way i'll get my degree in september yes i like to complicate my life but for now i'm happy this way, for this project, this thread and everything in between, hope this will bring me luck

Hi Fran. You really are working hard and deserve your degree.

The holiday was okay, but a very long (for me) journey to The Isle of Wight. Alan also found it a bit too much.

But the hotel was nice and we had a good crowd on our tour. One of the people I met had heard of Prosopagnosia, and understood the condition.

We toured round the island and saw the sights. I had been before, but Alan hadn't, but it's changed quite a bit. It's more built up than it was, but still a lovely island.

For foreign fans, not familiar with The Isle of Wight. If you look at the map of Britain. Right down at the bottom, about half way along the south coast, you'll notice there is a little bit, shaped sort-of like a diamond, which is separated by a very narrow strip of water (The Solent) from our main Island of Britain. That diamond-shaped bit is The Isle of Wight.

There is also another lovely Island, you can see on the map of the British Isles. It's between Britain and Ireland, and it's The Isle of Mann (famous for Manx Kippers and cats with no tails)

So now you know a bit more about The Mikaless UK (as I call it) Here ends the geography lesson.

[Marilyn Mastin]

Thought I'd bump the thread.

I'm actually having trouble with this fan site. It's slow and sticky. Must be lots of Boum Boum Boum fans logging in.

Anyone else having problems? Or is it just because of my pathetic little tablet?

I've heard the intro of the song. The intro is. very catchy.

If it was last month.

If Mika grew a beard.

If he also wore a dress.

He'd definitely win Eurovision for France.

[Kezza]

Nah, he'd just be seen as a copycat.

[willywonka]

Thought I'd bump the thread.

I'm actually having trouble with this fan site. It's slow and sticky. Must be lots of Boum Boum Boum fans logging in.

Anyone else having problems? Or is it just because of my pathetic little tablet?

I've heard the intro of the song. The intro is. very catchy.

If it was last month.

If Mika grew a beard.

If he also wore a dress.

He'd definitely win Eurovision for France.

 

:lmao:

[ladyolivier]

I just read though this thread and am both inspired and speechless. The first time I read you explaining your condition I wanted to ask you if a person ever can become stuck in your mind, if they were close enough to you, for example your husband, or Mika. However reading your posts just now I see that you have mentioned both how you identify your husband and that you DID briefly cross paths with Mika and did not immediately recognize him in a hoodie, so that answers my questions. I have always been someone who forms extremely strong facial associations - I'm the person pointing at the bit-part actor on a TV show going "who is that I know him from somewhere" so I cannot wrap my head around what it would be like to not be able to recognize people. I greatly admire how you...cope with your condition? that feels like a very ableist and negative way to put it but I am not sure how else to word it. While I understand this is your normal and thus you view it differently than someone who has not always lived with it, I still find you inspiring.

Keep being awesome.