Prosopagnosia (face blindness)

[iago]

http://www.faceblind.org/research/index.html

I'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!

[Hitmen]

I got very similar results to you, but I have never once had any sort of problem like this. I guess I just suck at these tests.

8/30 (it showed me 30, I guess it depends on how many you click that you aren't familiar with, because I had to click a bunch)
56%
51%
90%
96%

[kalaka]

- Faces: 21/24
- First: 80%
- Second: 88%
- Car: 84%
- Shoe:  bah

I'm too tired to do the stupid shoe test, the point is I don't have a face-recognition problem.

[iago]

8/30 (it showed me 30, I guess it depends on how many you click that you aren't familiar with, because I had to click a bunch)

Afterwards, it tells you how many you didn't know.

That's way better than me, though. I went through it a second time, and got 4. Captain Picard, Oprah, Thatcher, and one other. If I do it again, I might be able to get 8, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

56%
51%
90%
96%

Yep, roughly the same as me. The two face tests there are as much a test of memory as of facial recognition, I'd say that the famous-faces one is the best indication.

[d&q]

Out of 30 faces, you correctly identified 26.
You were familiar with 28 of the people in this test.

If we exclude the ones you were unfamiliar with, you got 93% correct.

[iago]

I find it absolutely amazing that somebody can get more than 2 or 3 right. Weird!

[Rule]

I did it really quickly, but:

Famous Faces:
If we exclude the ones you were unfamiliar with, you got 96% correct.
(Including the ones I was unfamiliar with, about 90%)