http://www.faceblind.org/research/index.htmlI've always been really bad at recognizing faces, and I tend to depend far more on cues like voice, hair, clothes, etc to figure out who somebody is. I never really thought much of it, I just knew I sucked at faces, and I've adapted to living like that. I'm really good at voices, and when I'm at a social event where I don't recognize people, I'm pretty good at faking it till they either talk or say something that identifies them. But I think if my best friend died/cut his hair, put on glasses, and wore a completely different style of clothes, and walked differently, there's a good chance I wouldn't recognize him.
This is especially troublesome while watching movies. Unless there's only a couple characters or unless the characters are various obvious (like in Clerks 2), I am often very confused about who's who. Also, I frequently fail to recognize some of my favorite actors (William Shatner and Patrick Stewart come to mind) in other movies until they talk.
But anyways, I've never really thought much of it. But apparently, there's a mental thingy called Prosopagnosia (from Greek: Prospos = face, Agnosia = not knowing) which fits those symptoms perfectly.
They offer a test there. I scored something like:
- Famous people: 0/20
- First face test: 55%
- Second face test: 48%
- Car test: 89%
- Shoe test: 98%
Which pretty much confirmed what I already knew, that there's a good chance I have some degree of face blindness. So I filled out their form, and we'll see where that goes.
What's interesting is that this has likely influenced a good part of my life, from social stuff to which movies I like. It's weird!
