I got something like 72% on the first test with the computer-generated faces. Below average, but I was surprised I did that well. I’ve got a long history of being very bad at tying faces to names; I’ll start on a new team at work and it’ll sometimes be months before I can reliably call people by their names; and a couple of weeks before I reliably remember who I’ve already been introduced to.
Do you have any other underlying issues? Do you have any trouble recognizing when a person you’re with is happy, sad, surprised etc.? I ask mostly because I first heard of face-blindness in the context of autism - a lot of folks with autism have trouble with faces in general, or sometimes just with reading emotions on faces.
Much easier. Not only are the faces distinct, but the people are more colorful.
Yeah, there’s a huge range.
I am in college. But I have changed. I was on a medication last year that made me gain a lot of weight.
Aspergers, more or less. I can tell emotions in person, but when I look at psych textbooks I’m lost. You know those pictures where they demonstrate that expressions are the same world-over? Barely have a clue. One time I actually thought a group of people were chimpanzees (but the photography was very bad, and black and white).
I’ve been thinking more about this, because of the Abercrombie bag. (You remember the Abercrombie bag). A while after I posted the thread, I was looking at myself in the mirror, and at the bag. Now, everyone says it looks like me, and when I look at it, I think, gee, that’s me! But somehow my reflection didn’t bear as much resemblence as I thought. It may be because of the aforementioned weight gain.
Oh boy, yes. I generally don’t get nonverbal communication in general.
When I was a kid, I would get in trouble for not listening during class because I wasn’t looking at the teacher. But if they asked me what they’d just been saying, I could parrot it back word for word. I didn’t look at people when they talked to me because that didn’t help me hear them, and seeing them didn’t give me any more information than what they were saying. I didn’t understand what the problem was.
I eventually learned that I should make eye contact with people because they expect it. Now I have to ask some people (yes, YOU, Mr Neville) to look at me when they talk to me, because my hearing’s not the best and they’re hard for me to hear when they’re facing away, especially in a noisy environment. I’m still not really getting any information from the faces, though.
I don’t get nonverbal nuances in conversations, and I don’t expect other people to pick up on mine, either. If you ask me “what’s wrong?” and I tell you “nothing”, I’m fine if you take that “nothing” at face value. I don’t expect you to somehow read my mind and know that something actually is bothering me. I don’t expect you to know how I’m feeling without asking me- I can’t do that, why would I expect anyone else to?
I’ve never been officially diagnosed with anything on the autism spectrum, but I see myself in the Asperger’s description.
99% on the face memory test (whoa, that was totally unexpected) and 77% on the celebrity test. The problem with the second one is that I recognize all the people but can’t always come up with a name.
What’s the word for people who can place faces but not always remember names of people and things? I forget names for common objects too, occasionally. For example, I’ll be holding a fork and completely forget what it’s called.
Do we know what percentage of the population has some form of this? Because I’m now wondering if people we think are behaving in an “off” or not-expected way might actually have this condition.
Now I’m running through my mind all the people who I haven’t been able to figure out, wondering if this is the reason.
Do you have trouble with sarcasm? Did you ever act like Curtis Lemay as a kid?
I was actually diagnosed with AS at one point, but I never really fit. Since I understand nonverbal communication often better than others, I really don’t think I have it, and despite going to many other doctors, nobody else has diagnosed me with it.
Wow, thanks for that website. I always thought I was pretty bad with faces, but I scored 96% on the darn thing!
I also scored 100% on the celebrity test, but that’s because…
I checked “not familiar with” for Tony Blair. I obviously know who he is, but I really didn’t know what he looked like. And for Mahatma Gandhi, my first impulse was to write “Ben Kingsley!”
42% on the famous faces test and just barely better than boarderline on the CG test.
I don’t really like watching Japanese dramas because I’m constantly mixing up who is who, especially on ones like a show my wife was watching about OB-GYNs and they were all wearing the same uniform.
We met an actress from that show, and I couldn’t pick her out.
I’ll show my wife the test, and I’ll bet she’ll get 100% of the CG right.
For the OP, when and how did you discover your problem?
Come to think of it, that probably would help. One of my main problems is that since I’m not sure who I’m talking to, I can’t form a mental file on them and connect what they’re telling me to what they previously told me. If someone was very obvious, that would help me build a personality profile, which in turn would help recognition.
I’ve always had it. My mom remembers when I was in pre-K and I told her I recognize people by their clothes and hair. I don’t remember when I specifically learned that this was a neurological condition.
So how does this work in the month interim? Do you just tell yourself that you’ll be living with an apparent stranger for a month, or do you ID everyone who shows up in your apartment?
I took both tests and pretty much reinforced my own knowledge…I am great with faces, but terrible with names. Even so, I got a 92% on the first facial recognition one, and a 100% on the celebrity one. It took me much longer and I almost missed Patrick Stewart and Tom Hanks. But dammit I KNEW who they were.
When going to class, it was like sitting among strangers whose identitiy became clearer over time. Roomies? Most of the time I already knew them, but otherwise I just pretty much assumed they were who they were and supposed to be there.
It’s important to remember how situational this is. If I see a person matching the general description of my roommate, who has a key and obviously knows his way around, coming out of his room, I don’t need to positively confirm who it is. But… if I met my roommate somewhere else, I probably wouldn’t recognise him. I lived with one roommate for years and was never sure of his name.
I think I have this to some extent too. I have the hardest time with movies, and sometimes TV shows, because the characters always look alike to me. Unless they have some obvious differences like hair or skin color or sex or something, I’m hopelessly confused. It’s embarrassing (well it’s not embarrassing about movie characters, but when it comes to people I should know).
I can recognize a new roommate in context. If my catogory for “roommate” only contains two entries, I can remember that Sarah is blond and chubby, and Chaya is short with black hair. It’s just that if I met them in the hallway or such, I might not recognize them until they said hello.