Face blindness

[BurntoutMedc_Student]

I am curious does anyone else here have trouble recognizing faces, it’s not like you can’t completely recognize a face, but it takes too much time to memorize a face. When there are crowds it also hard to see or notice people you know if you don’t usually see them often. And can’t really picture faces well in my head, even if I picture other stuff well.

[BlessedLady]

There is something we need to remember. We change over time and that includes our facial features. Some people change more than others. If you see someone you do not see often. It might be a little difficult to recognize them.

[STEM_Dad]

The difficulty or inability to recognize faces is called Prosopagnosia (or Facial Agnosia). It can be developmental (a condition that an individual has always had), or acquired (due to injury or illness). Congenital Prosopagnosia (the developmental kind) is reportedly inheritable.

I thought it was rare, but a report from early this year says that about 1 in 33 people have this struggle (about 3% of the population).

As far as I know, it isn't tied directly to ADHD. However, I did find a study that was done of school age boys, which revealed that the boys in the study who have ADHD had different brain signal processing than the boys who don't have ADHD when looking at faces. (The boys with ADHD actually had more signal processing going on.)

This suggests that there is at least a delay in ADHD with recognition (which seems to be an issue for me), and perhaps ADHD neurology can actually be one cause of Face Blindness...but I think that more research should be done to test this possibility.

. . . . .

Prosopagnosia has been reported to be more common with ASD (autism spectrum disorder, including Asperger's) than in the general population. There is a notable overlap of ASD and ADHD.

* 30-80% of children with ASD also meet the requirements for ADHD diagnosis

* 20-50% of children with ADHD also meet the diagnostic criteria for ASD

{with ADHD more common than ASD, these number differences make sense}

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I recognize faces fairly well most of the time...but I have trouble remembering names.

However, if I recognize someone, but I meet them away from the place I know them from, then it's harder for me to remember how I know them.

* (It seems that location is very important for my brain to process context. I'm sure that it's not that unusual of an experience, but I might be wrong about that.)

[_Sarah_J]

Yes, sometimes. Sometimes it’s names. Toss a coin.😂 ADHD and difficulty with memory go hand in hand. Probably in part because we aren’t fully present and focused at any given time. The faces problem has gotten worse with people wearing masks one day and not the next. It’s hard to know who anyone is!😂🤷🏻‍♀️

[wtfadhd]

omg yes!!! lol

i struggle with faces and names too!

i think STEM said his ability to recall people depends on location. For me, it depends on if i find or at least once found something about that person to be particularly interesting. If not, forget about it, there is a tiny chance i will remember them.

im so glad u brought this up, even if it isnt related to ADHD, its comforting to know that im not the only one who is “ face” challenged. 😜

[NorKoln]

Me!!!!! Even people i know well can confuse me if they make a major change to hair or clothing style as I tend to see the whole impression not the face specifically. I recognize voices really well, so I usually figure out who it is super quick if they talk.

I have literally learned to treat every person as if I know them simply because when I was young, people would get understandably offended if I didn't recognize them. And I used to constantly ask my best friend do I know them when we'd run into groups of people. I mean I've been known to not recognize myself in old photos!!!

I hate it, but at the same time I think it's really made me the person I like being because I have to treat every stranger like a friend...

[Absentmind]

Yes I can relate to having face blindness. It is so much worse in crowds too. There are so many things going on I can’t keep up. My son who has high functioning autism has great trouble with this too.

[notanotter]

Well it’s a mix. I can recognize faces of people I know, but it’s hard for me to recognize people in photos of them when they were younger. And other people are better at it. Other people will be like, oh of course that’s Aunt MirandaJellyBear, don’t you notice [her ears or cheeks or some combo].

This ability must lie on a spectrum. And I was pretty shy as a child and probably didn’t look at people in the face as much. Nor was I as people oriented.

It’s as if I learned to read faces using a set of guidelines very young that are incomplete -because no one ever taught me all of them. But other people intuited these rules as toddlers!

We have a friend who has had severe prosopagnosia from his childhood. For what it’s worth, he also has ADHD very hyperactive. He’s also a highly productive artist and touring musician. He recognizes us by our voices it seems. It’s a little odd though because he barely looks at our faces. (Yet he can paint faces. So interesting.)

[Blue_186281_red]

I looked into Prosopagnosia once and didn't totally relate. There was a celebrity face test I did well on, but I do relate to recognizing people by hair, body type, context, etc. I suspect, like any other type of intelligence, there is a range of ability that I fall fairly low on with faces but it is not pathological. ADD is a separate but aggravating factor. I can't remember people's names who I hung out regularly with a couple years ago. Nursing school was a nightmare for me - 80% cute asian girls. I couldn't keep anyone straight, and never really integrated as a result of my anxiety. I remember running into 5 beautiful girls near school on a Friday night. They were super nice, chatting me up, inviting me to hang out and I didn't recognize any of them. I was so ashamed I made some lame excuse and ran away.

But then, I married one of the asian nursing students and she had similar (but lesser) problems with classmates so IDK. F my memory.