No Face Like Home

Faceless: NYTimes Video about Prosopagnosia

2012-01-02T23:02:00.002-05:00

Link to New York Times Video about Prosopagnosia and Me

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/health/views/face-and-voice-recognition-may-be-linked-in-the-brain-research-suggests.html?pagewanted=2&_r=3&hpw

Its an inside look into the life of someone with Prosopagnosia (me), created by Almudena Toral. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Its all very true for me. I hope this gives people a little insight into the disorder.

2012-01-02T22:22:00.002-05:00

Transcript of recent New York Times featuring James Cooke (whom I have never met) and I.

December 26, 2011

Have We Met? Tracing Face Blindness to Its Roots

By KAREN BARROW

Close your eyes. Picture your closest friend. Maybe you see her blue eyes, long nose, brown hair. Perhaps even her smile.

If you saw her walking down the street it would match your imagined vision. But what if you saw nothing at all?

James Cooke, 66, of Islip, N.Y., can’t recognize other people. When he meets someone on the street, he offers a generic “hello” because he can’t be sure if he’s ever met that person before. “I see eyes, nose, cheekbones, but no face,” he said. “I’ve even passed by my son and daughter without recognizing them.”

He is not the only one. Those with prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, can see perfectly well, but their brains are unable to piece together the information needed to understand that a collection of features represents an individual’s face. The condition is a neurological mystery, but new research has shed light on this strange malady.

One of the keys to understanding face recognition, it seems, is understanding how the brain comes to recognize voices. Some scientists had believed that faces and voices, the two main ways people recognize one another, were processed separately by the brain. Indeed, a condition parallel to prosopagnosia, called phonagnosia, similarly leaves a person unable to distinguish a familiar voice from an unfamiliar one.

But by testing for these two conditions simultaneously, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany recently found evidence that face and voice recognition may be linked in a novel person-recognition system.

Using M.R.I., the scientists looked at the brain activity of 19 healthy volunteers as they were led through tasks that tested their ability to recognize both faces and voices. The researchers found that regions of the brain already associated with facial recognition, like the fusiform face area in the occipital lobe, are directly linked to regions responsible for voice recognition, mostly in the temporal lobe.

This research helps explain why a person with prosopagnosia may still have difficulty determining who a person is even after she has begun to speak. “People with prosopagnosia don’t have the benefit of learning voices with faces,” said Katharina von Kriegstein, author of the study, which was published in September in The Journal of Neuroscience.

The challenge for scientists is to find out where this system breaks down. Are these connections in the brain missing entirely, or are people unable to recognize faces and voices simply unable to use these links in some way?

It is unclear how many people have these conditions. Many don’t even realize they have problems with facial or voice recognition. While some develop these difficulties after a brain injury or trauma, others develop it in childhood.

For Mr. Cooke, who lives with his two grown children, face blindness first surfaced after brain surgery for an unrelated condition. Three physicians stood by his bed in the hospital the day after surgery to ask how he was feeling. Mr. Cooke didn’t think he had met the doctors before, so he gave some generic responses. After the doctors left, Mr. Cooke’s mother came in to find out what his surgeon had to say.

Mr. Cooke was shocked to discover he had just been speaking with his own doctor. “I didn’t recognize that I didn’t recognize him,” he said.

He went home, and the face blindness continued. Months later, he still couldn’t recognize his son, let alone his son’s friends when they visited. The cashiers at the grocery store had turned into strangers. Neighbors’ faces were completely foreign.

He went from neurologist to neurologist until one recognized that he had prosopagnosia, most likely a side effect of his surgery.

While there is no treatment or cure for Mr. Cooke, figuring out why he was no longer able to recognize his own children was a relief. “It was good to hear that what I was experiencing was real and not in my imagination,” he said.

Dori Frame, 51, of Brooklyn, is less certain about the cause of her face blindness, as she doesn’t remember having difficulty recalling faces as a child. She did suffer a severe head injury at age 16 while horseback riding, but it is unclear whether that caused her prosopagnosia as an adult.

“My eyes see just fine,” said Ms. Frame. “But when I look away, I can’t recall the picture in my mind.”

Ms. Frame didn’t realize she had a problem until she learned about prosopagnosia in a psychology class. “It’s like colorblindness,” she said. “You don’t realize you see colors differently than anyone else until someone points it out to you.”

Brad Duchaine, who researches face blindness at Dartmouth, says that after giving talks about prosopagnosia, he is often approached by audience members who have just realized that their difficulty keeping movie characters straight or identifying co-workers on the street may be more than just a quirk. “I think there’s a lot of people who have difficulty and just don’t know it,” he said.

With no treatments, those with face blindness have to rely on simple coping strategies. “They use all those other cues that everyone else uses, just to a greater degree,” Dr. Duchaine said.

For example, Ms. Frame can recall a person’s hairstyle and body type and how they move. “But when my husband gets a haircut, it takes me a while to reconcile that,” she said.

Mr. Cooke has his own strategies. He knows that if he sees a tall, blond man in his kitchen, it’s most likely his son. A tall, blonde woman cleaning the house is probably his daughter. “However, I have mistaken my kids’ friends for them,” he said.

The condition has unexpected social consequences. How do you explain to everyone you meet that you may not recognize them later? “I live in fear of making people feel unimportant by not recognizing them,” Ms. Frame said.

Mr. Cooke was once on a date with a brunette who knew about his condition, he said, when he excused himself to use the restroom. Returning, he saw a pretty, brown-haired woman sitting alone, so he slipped into the chair across from hers. “My date came running across the restaurant to tell me I was at the wrong table,” he said.

Ms. Frame isn’t as open about her face blindness. Whenever she is meeting someone, she arrives early, so her friend has to find her. Still, even with prosopagnosia often at the forefront of her mind, Ms. Frame often forgets her difficulties. “It still seems bizarre to me,” she said. “You mistake yourself for someone else in the mirror, and you feel so silly when you realize it’s you.”

I Am Prosopagnosic

2011-12-27T18:50:00.001-05:00

Public becomes personal. Since I have decided to allow a photojournalist to print my story in the New York Times, I have decided this is a good time to go public with at least one of my disorders, Prosopagnosia. Here is the note I sent to my friends and acquaintances, directing them to the story, and more importantly, the video on the NYTimes web site. Its like sitting at the top of the first and tallest roller coaster ride hill, poised to pour downward into what you know will be series of ups and downs. Its freeing and scry to tlk about this. Here we go . . .

Link at bottom of page. Check out the video especially. My dog and boy
are in it.

For those of you that do not already know, here it is in the NYTimes
today, Tuesday. For as long as I have known you, I have had
Prosopagnosia and Topographical Agnosia, or Topographic Disorientation
(you'll have to look that up, too much too explain). This may explain
some awkward situations during our interactions, but most likely not.
I have spent most of my life lying and denying to hide these deficits.
My online support group (we would never meet face-to-face in a
physical support group) has convinced me that all Prosopagnosic's
lives would be easier if more people knew about it. I have always been
reluctant to bring it up, preferring to make excuses and pretend I
know people.

I do have very good coping skills, so I can often figure people out.
Contrary to the article in nytimes linked to my article, I have
extremely good voice recognition skills. I also use physical stature,
body movements, gait, etc. to identify people. I have had a lot of
practice, and if all else fails, I just act like I know you, and fake
my way though the conversation.

The preferable situation is that I "come out" in this fashion, tell
people my problem, and they identify themselves when they see the
blank look on my face. You have to look quick though:)

For those of you who have trouble remembering names, you are in good
company. 80% of Americans report trouble remembering names. I, on the
other hand, am great at it - a coping skill I guess. The researchers
estimate 2% of the population have Prosopagnosia. I could go on and on
about this, but there is more info links and articles on my blog
www.NoFaceLikeHome.com

Please feel free to forward this link to others. The more people that
know about this, the better. Also, feel free to ask all the questions
you want. It is hard for me to bring up this subject, but I could talk
all day about it to interested people. It is fascinating and strange,
even to me, even after all these years.

Thanks!
Dori

Here's the nytimes link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/health/views/face-and-voice-recognition-may-be-linked-in-the-brain-research-suggests.html?_r=1&hpw

The video link is on the same page, and is more in depth on me and
living with Prosopagnosia or PA as we say.

Gene Weingarten - Losing Face

2011-11-15T19:26:00.000-05:00

Ask my husband G, this conversation has taken place during most every movie we have ever watched. This is why I do not like to watch movies alone, there is no one to clue me in.

This is an old post, but just came to my attention.

From the Washington Post, Gene Weingarten - Losing Face:

'via Blog this'

Losing Face
Gene gets no recognition
By Gene Weingarten
Sunday, March 16, 2008

This is what it is like to be at the movies with me.
Me: Is that the same guy who was in the last scene, with the girl?
Wife: Yes. Shh.
Me: But he had a beard in the last scene.
Wife: No, he didn't. Shhh.
Me: Are you sure?
Wife: Shhhhh.
Me: (Sulk.)

Wife: Listen, you idiot. It's Tom Cruise. The same Tom Cruise who was in the previous scene. It's the same one who will be in the next scene. It's the same one who had Renee Zellweger at hello in the last movie when you forgot who Tom Cruise was, and, yes, by the way, that was Renee Zellweger, not Kirsten Dunst, who looks nothing like Renee Zellweger and would not be confused for Renee Zellweger by anyone but you, okay?

Stranger in next seat: Shhh.

I have trouble recognizing and remembering faces. It is a mild form of a disorder called prosopagnosia, which in its most extreme form can cause you to look in a mirror and not recognize the person looking back at you.

My face-recognition dysfunction is pretty minor, but it is severely tested when watching a movie, a circumstance where you are suddenly presented with many unfamiliar people interacting in complicated ways, and you must learn to quickly tell them apart. I'm okay if a character has some dramatic distinguishing characteristic, or speaks in a distinctive way -- I was just fine with the Wicked Witch of the West -- but if the characters seem to be random assemblages of run-of-the-mill noses and eyes, lips and ears, I am in trouble.
In men, there is a certain intense, generic look that particularly confounds me. I cannot distinguish Liam Neeson from Ralph Fiennes from that guy who played Ingrid Bergman's goody-two-shoes husband in "Casablanca." All the same fella, far as I can tell. Also Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper.
With women, my problem is blondes. Renee Zellweger and Loretta Swit and Kirsten Dunst and Gwyneth Paltrow and Lana Turner. Same lady.

When watching the Oscar-winning film "The Departed," I could not reliably distinguish Matt Damon from Leonardo DiCaprio, which proved to be a significant problem, because one was a good guy masquerading as a bad guy and one was a bad guy masquerading as a good guy. By the end of the film, many people were deceased, but I had no clear idea about who had done what to whom, and why.

Outside of the movies, I'm mostly okay, though I don't believe I have ever in my life, once, been able to recognize someone out of context, and that can be an embarrassing problem. Do you know that risque two-people-meet-in-a-supermarket joke with the punch line, "No, I'm your son's math teacher"? Well, I am that guy. Feel free to Google it.

Here is the worst thing that ever happened to me because of my condition:
Sometime after being hired as an editor by The Washington Post, I realized that a certain writer at the paper -- one of the people whose work I most respected -- detested me. I never talked to him about it because there didn't seem any point. It wasn't until years later that I learned from a third party what had happened. When I was being interviewed for the job, this man had gone out to lunch with me. We had talked deeply and richly about subjects of mutual interest, and he had given a glowing report back to management. I was hired, at least in part, on the basis of his recommendation.

But when I arrived at the newspaper a month later, I passed him in the hall -- many times -- and never thanked him or even acknowledged him. He concluded, with ample justification, that I was a total jerk. The fact is, I had no recognition of who he was, and by the time I figured it out, the damage was done.
To the guy in question: I'm really sorry, and I hope you recognize yourself from this anecdote. If it helps, you're the one who looks kind of like Sean Connery. Or, possibly, Dustin Hoffman.

Gene Weingarten can be reached at weingarten@washpost.com.

MApping Charlie: A Mystery Novel

2011-11-11T09:17:00.001-05:00

A great new book has been published by author Jane Meyerding. Its called Mapping Charlie, and it features a character who is Faceblind. While the book is fiction, it gives uncommon insight into the life of someone who is Prosopagnosic. Below is an excerpt from a fascinating interview with the author Jane on the Washington Times website:

Meyerding has been a writer for many years, although she has mostly written non-fiction essays, some of which you can find on her website at http://www.planetautism.com/jane/index.html. In 1994, a small press published a mystery novel she wrote, in a process that Meyerding describes as "exceedingly painful," which is one reason she chose to self-publish Mapping Charlie.

Face blindness is obviously a personal subject for Meyerding, considering that she experiences it daily. She's never pursued a diagnosis ("I guess it's just too obvious to require confirmation," she comments.) for her prosopagnosia, but she says that learning about it was a revelation.

"Other people really could recognize each other right away," she says about her wonderment in learning of face blindness. "They weren't just pretending better because they had better social skills, and there really is a part of the human brain to handle that function—except that my brain simply doesn't."

She goes on to say that knowing about faceblindness helps because, "You realize you don't have to choose between 'I'm lazy' and 'I'm crazy,' and you can meet others online or elsewhere and share strategies for dealing with the face-sighted majority.

Meyerding's character Kay has to do exactly that in Mapping Charlie. Her faceblindness leads to her becoming a suspect when a college classmate of hers is murdered. Unbeknownst to her, because she didn't realize he was the same person, Kay is the last person known to have spoken to him, after running into him on a city bus.

This is not only a good book for prosopagnosics and those wanting to understand more about how they function, it is a fantastic read in general!

Mapping Charlie is available from Amazon and Lulu.com. Keep up to date on Meyerding's work and publishing schedule on her website at http://www.planetautism.com/jane/index.html.

2011-10-06T15:22:00.001-05:00

For us Topograpical Agnosics, here is an article from www.bbc.co.uk
It honestly does not seem near as helpful as I'd hope, but I guess every little bit helps, right?
5 October 2011 Last updated at 21:00 ET

Six ways to never get lost in a city again

In today's Magazine

Many people now rely on their smartphones, sat-navs or other GPS devices to find their way around. But when these fail us, and there's no-one to ask for directions, there's a more natural way to navigate, says Tristan Gooley.

It's not every week that a massive solar flare knocks out the GPS network, but all it takes is a flat battery or a mechanical fault to hobble your automated orientation aids.

And if there's no-one around to ask and no paper map on hand, you could be in trouble.

Natural navigation may be just what you need. This involves working out which way to go without using maps, compasses or any other instruments. It relies on awareness and deduction, so does depend on retaining some awareness of direction throughout each journey.

1. TV satellite dishes

Look for satellite dishes and signs of weathering

These really are the "get out of jail free" cards in an urban area.

This is because the dishes point at a geostationary satellite, one that stays over the same point on the Earth's surface.

In the UK there is a dominant satellite broadcaster, hence nearly all the dishes tend to point in the same direction - close to southeast.

The same applies in rural areas - especially those blessed with pubs screening sport.

2. Religious buildings

East is east

From earliest times, religious buildings and sacred sites have been laid out to give clues as to direction.

Christian churches are normally aligned west-east, with the main altar at the eastern end to face the sunrise. Gravestones, too, are aligned west-east.

To find direction from a mosque, you need to go inside and look for the niche in one wall, which indicates the direction for prayer. This niche, known as al-Qibla, will be the direction of Mecca, wherever you are in the world.

And synagogues normally place the Torah Ark at the eastern end, positioned so worshippers face towards Jerusalem. (Synagogues in countries east of Israel will face west.)

3. Weathering

“Start Quote

I teach people to find their way using only the sun, stars, moon, plants, animals, weather and buildings”

Tristan Gooley

All Roads Lead Home

The prevailing winds carry rain and pollution. These then hit the buildings, leaving patterns.

The wind comes from the southwest in the UK more often than from any other direction. This results in asymmetrical weathering patterns on buildings - similar to the erosion seen in nature.

Look up, above the cleaned glass and metals of the lower floors, to the natural stone or weathered bricks higher up.

Notice how the building's corners all show subtly different weathering patterns.

The contrast between southwest and northeast corners is the greatest. But the shifts in colours, where the rain and pollutants have left their mark, can be read on all sides with a little practice.

Trees, too, indicate direction, with the very tops combed over by the prevailing wind.

4. Flow of people

Rush hour crowds point the way

Pacific navigators learned to follow the birds in their search of land. They quickly realised that while an individual bird can behave eccentrically, a pair - or even better a flock - will follow a pattern.

The same is true of human beings. There is no point following an individual, you could end up anywhere. But following a crowd in the late afternoon will take you towards a station or other transport hub. In the mornings, walk against the flow to find these stations.

At lunchtime in sunny weather, crowds move from office blocks towards the open spaces of parks and rivers.

5. Road alignment

Wind direction and road layout can help

Roads do not spring up randomly, they grow to carry traffic - and the bulk of traffic is either heading into or out of a town. So the biggest roads tend to be aligned in a certain way, depending on whether you are in the centre or on the outskirts.

In the north or south of town, the major roads will tend to be aligned north/south. In the northwest or southeast, they will have a bias towards northwest/southeast. This is why road maps of big towns show a radial pattern.

It is common sense, but very few people realise this when they feel lost in a big city.

6. Clouds

Look up into the skies

One of the best ways not to lose your sense of direction is to hold onto it. My favourite way of doing this in a city is to orientate myself - using some of the clues above - and then note the direction the clouds are moving.

The wind pushing the clouds will remain fairly constant, providing there's no dramatic change in the weather.

This technique really earns its keep on underground journeys, especially to a new part of town. Simply look up before you head underground, and remember the direction of the clouds. When you emerge in a strange part of the city, look up again and you'll be able to work out which way is which from the clouds overhead.

Tristan Gooley is on BBC Two's All Roads Lead Home, which started Wednesday 5 October at 2000 BST - or catch up with iPlayer.

One Person's Thoughts on Living With Faceblindness

2011-05-18T12:36:00.000-05:00

I am part of an online support community for Prosopagnosics. We have regular discussions about living with PA. The entry in italics below was posted during a discussion on whether we think of ourselves as disabled or not. For me, it depends on the day.

"When I went to bed last night I had a long think about how different
it is to not be FB. I thought specifically of my friend down the
road, who is just over a year older than me and has similar
intelligence.

Here are some points:

My friend never meets someone in the village or the nearby town and
doesn't know if she's met them before or not.
She never has a conversation while trying madly to work out who the
other person is.
When someone comes into her shop she knows if they have shopped with
her before, and often she will remember something about what they have
bought previously.
She never gets confused watching tv, movie or theatre because some of
the characters look much the same.
If she leaves a crowded room, when she returns she can spot who she
was talking to before she left.
She has never confused two people because they have the same gender
and similar hair.
She has never had to wait until she's back home to have an "aha
moment" about who she was talking to earlier.
She has never worked with someone for an entire afternoon and then
failed to recognise them the very next day.
She doesn't suffer an extreme disorientation when someone close to her
radically changes their hairstyle.
If she went to school reunion she would recognise most of her
ex-classmates even though she left school more than 20 years ago!
She has never failed to recognise her own mother/sister/aunt etc
She has never stood waiting for someone only to find the other person
is waiting for her just a few yards away.

What this all leads me to think is that our state of confusion is so
normal to us that we don't actually know how extreme it is. If my
friend was to suddenly become FB she'd be devastated. Even when she
developed coping skills she would still look back with a sense of
intense loss.

Whether we call it disablity or not I think is just semantics. You
could say the same about dyslexia - if the dyslexic person isn't at
this moment having to deal with reading or writing they are not
disabled in this moment, but they still qualify as disabled for
accommodations."
-Autiste Ruth
(thanks to Autiste Ruth for allowing me to re-post this)

The above statement in bold letters is as striking to me as a bang on the head. It reminds me that even when I think I am having a good day recognizing people, through the use of coping skills, I really have no idea if that it so.

Prosopagnosia, the science behind face blindness : The New Yorker

2011-05-06T18:22:00.001-05:00

I've just finished reading Chapter four from Oliver Sacks' latest book, The Mind's Eye. It is his first person account of being prosopagnosic. Definitely worth a read, since it has a lot of good background information on the condition itself.

Here is the Abstract for the article he published in the New Yorker as a lead-in media piece. The great thing about it when it came out was the number of readers, in New York and elsewhere, who became familiar with PA.

Prosopagnosia, the science behind face blindness : The New Yorker: "ABSTRACT: A NEUROLOGIST’S NOTEBOOK about prosopagnosia, or the inability to recognize faces and places. Writer describes his own difficulties recognizing and remembering faces. He also has the same difficulty with places and often becomes lost when he strays from familiar routes. At the age of seventy-seven, despite a lifetime of trying to compensate, he has no less trouble with faces and places than when he was younger. He is particularly thrown when seeing a person out of context, even if he was with that person five minutes before. Writer gives several examples of his inability to recognize familiar people out of context, including his therapist and his assistant. After learning that his brother suffered from the same problem, the writer came to believe that they both had a specific trait, a so-called prosopagnosia, probably with a distinctive genetic basis. Mentions several other people who have the same trait, including Jane Goodall and the artist Chuck Close. Face recognition is crucially important for humans, and the vast majority of us are able to identify thousands of faces individually, or to easily pick out familiar faces in a crowd. People with prosopagnosia need to be resourceful, inventive in finding strategies for circumventing their deficits: recognizing people by an unusual nose or beard, or by their spectacles, or a certain type of clothing. Describes research done on the way the brain recognizes faces. Tells about the work of Christopher Pallis, Charles Gross, Olivier Pascalis, Isabel Gauthier, and other scientists. Above all, the recognition of faces depends not only on the ability to parse the visual aspects of the face—its particular features and their over-all configuration—and compare them with others, but also on the ability to summon the memories, experiences, and feelings associated with that face. The recognition of specific places or faces goes with a particular feeling, a sense of association and meaning. Briefly discusses déjà vu and Capgras syndrome. Considers the difference between acquired prosopagnosia—through stroke or Alzheimer’s for example—and congenital prosopagnosia. Discusses the work of Ken Nakayama and Brad Duchaine, who have explored the neural basis of face and place recognition. They have also studied the psychological effects and social consequences of developmental prosopagnosia. Severe congenital prosopagnosia is estimated to affect two to two and a half per cent of the population—six to eight million people in the United States alone.

Oliver Sacks, A Neurologist’s Notebook, “Face-Blind,” The New Yorker, August 30, 2010, p. 36

What's in a human face? on Vimeo

2011-05-05T17:02:00.001-05:00

What's in a human face? on Vimeo: Almudena Toral made this slide show of a prosopagnosic New York man. She is the reporter who is working on the story for NY Times video, which this man James Cooke and myself will be in. It is short and very well done.

I like the fact that he explains that he CAN see faces when he is looking at them, something that isn't always understood about prosopagnosics, in part due to the fact that we use the slang term "Faceblind".
I feel that sometimes this does us a disservice as far as describing the condition, since, with rare exception, we can all SEE faces.

I also related to the fact that he no longer really pays attention to faces. Its sad but true that when you clean little information from something, it no longer becomes that important for you to look at, except for the fact that, well, it makes people feel important. I am sometimes made aware that because I am not watching a person's face, they don't think I am listening to them. Its a big thing for humans. On the other hand, I know if I stare at a person's face, I will get little if any valuable recognition information, but i will feel more accountable as far as recognizing them in the future after they see me paying attention to their face. That's not something I relish.

Story for New York Times

2011-05-03T13:10:00.003-05:00

Almudena Toral, reporter, videotaping at my house.

Most of the day Tuesday, I was videotaped by photojournalist Almudena Toral, a free-lance journalist who is doing a piece on Prosopagnosia (PA) for the NY Times. She is about as excited about having her picture posted on this blog as I am about outing myself through her video for the New York Times.
I notice many journalists are much more comfortable telling the story than being it.

Re: Faceblidness Front and Center - Lecture in New York

2010-05-14T09:37:00.001-05:00

World Science Festival is presenting:

Strangers in the Mirror

BUY TICKETS

Friday, June 4, 2010, 8:00 PM - 10:30 PM

The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College

What's it like to face a faceless world? Acclaimed neurologist Oliver Sacks once apologized for almost bumping into a large bearded man, only to realize he was speaking to a mirror. Sacks and photorealist painter Chuck Close—geniuses from opposite ends of the creative spectrum—share their experiences of living with a curious condition known as "face blindness," or prosopagnosia. The two will discuss the challenges of maintaining interpersonal relationships-- when even family and close friends appear as strangers.

Moderator: Robert Krulwich

Participants:

Chuck Close

Chuck Close is a visual artist noted for his highly inventive techniques used to paint the human face, and is best known for his large-scale, photo-based portrait paintings. He is also an accomplished printmaker and photographer whose work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions in more than 20 countries, including major retrospective exhibitions at New York's Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid and most recently at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has also participated in nearly 800 group exhibitions.read more

Robert Krulwich

Robert Krulwich is an award-winning radio and television journalist who has been called 'the most inventive network reporter in television' by TV Guide. He is an ABC News correspondent, NPR science correspondent, and co-host of WNYC's science documentary program, Radio Lab.read more

Oliver Sacks

Neurologist Oliver Sacks has spent a lifetime exploring a vast array of human experience – from Tourette's syndrome and autism to phantom limb syndrome and schizophrenia. His many best-selling books include Uncle Tungsten, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Awakenings, which became an acclaimed film. Sacks is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and a Columbia University Artist. His writings appear regularly in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.read more

Venue
The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College

--
dori

646-734-5211

Another Research-Oriented Faceblind article

2010-02-24T11:03:00.001-05:00

Can't Place the Face? Maybe It's Your Genes - AOL News

Really felt like this one one of the poorer representations of Prosopagnosia. It emphasizes the genetic role that they have uncovered through research, but seems to minimize the extent of the problem. I was most discouraged by the quote at the end from the Neurobiologist, Margaret Livingstone, who does not seem to have a grasp of the deficit, and attributes it more to a "motivational gene" (my quotations marks).

On the plus side, it is one more piece of information to help get the word out to the mainstream media.

Can't Place the Face? Maybe It's Your Genes

Traci Watson Contributor

(Feb. 23) -- A guest at a party taps your shoulder and says, "Remember me?" If you don't, just blame it on your genes.

New research shows that the ability to recognize faces is strongly genetic, meaning that your ability to identify a second cousin last encountered 20 years ago will depend heavily on whether your parents could do the same.

Skill at facial recognition is roughly 75 percent or more inherited, says Wellesley College vision scientist Jeremy Wilmer, the lead scientist behind the new research. That means the next time you draw a blank when someone swears to have met you before, "it's at least 75 percent your parents' genetic fault," Wilmer says.

The environment in which a person grew up does play a small role, but by far the largest influence is the genetic material handed down from parents to children, he says.

Courtesy Jeremy Wilmer

How good are you at recognizing faces? You can test your skills at faceblind.org.

Scientists had suspected for years that face recognition might be genetic, because they've tracked down clusters of blood relatives who have trouble recognizing faces. One Las Vegas family, for example, included eight members over four generations, and they all struggled to identify other people by their faces, says Bradley Duchaine of University College London, another member of the research team.

But just because many members of one clan have the same disability doesn't necessarily mean it's in their DNA. It could be that they were all exposed to the same environmental factors in childhood.

So Wilmer and his team set out to study twins. They recruited identical twins, who share 100 percent of their genes, and nonidentical twins, who share only 50 percent of their genes. All the twins took a quiz in which they viewed six faces. Then they were shown a selection of faces and asked to pick those they'd seen before. (Take the test yourself.)

The resulting scores were all over the map. Some people did no better than if they had guessed wildly without even looking at the faces they were supposed to study. Others aced the test.

What intrigued the researchers was that for identical twins, in general, each racked up scores similar to the other twin's score. Fraternal twins were less likely to score close together. That translates to a strong genetic influence on face recognition.

The scientists double-checked their findings by having the twins take word memorization tests. They found that those who were whizzes at word memorization were not necessarily geniuses at face memorization -- meaning that the ability to store and recall faces is a unique and individual skill that has nothing to do with memory overall.

One scientist not affiliated with the research team describes its work as "beautiful." Neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University says that perhaps some genes make people want to look at faces, giving them the practice to shine at the task of recognizing a crooked eyebrow or a thick nose.

The new study was published in the most recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Filed under: Science

Re: faceblind: Prosopagnosia Research

2009-12-15T12:39:00.001-05:00

faceblind: Prosopagnosia Research

Here is another testing opportunity for Prosopagnosia on west coast of the USA.
Posted in LiveJournal July 23rd, 2009

Prosopagnosia Research
I recently went to visit Dr. Nathan Witthoft, an individual working in the Stanford Vision and Perception Neuroscience Lab, who is doing research on individuals that have prosopagnosia. I had a very good time speaking with him and taking part in his tests. It was really neat to actually have someone test my facial perception and show me how I fared compared with people that are more neurotypical. I'm really curious to see what he comes up with in his research.

Anyways, he's looking for more volunteers to come in and take some of his tests, so I thought I'd pass along the information, as he is a nice guy doing legit research in this field.

Here's a description of what he's doing that he sent me:
" I work in a visual neuroscience lab that studies high level vision using psychophysics and fMRI. We have an ongoing project studying people with congenital prosopagnosia. Generally speaking people with CP have normal vision and normal cognition but extraordinary difficulty recognizing people from their faces. This difficulty is lifelong, though it does take some people a while to realize that there face recognition is not as good as most other people. The experiments are a number of psychophysical tasks which we use to try to understand the nature of the problem and also several brain imaging experiments including fMRI and DTI (mapping the white matter pathways in the brain). We do pay for subjects' time, though the amount is limited by the IRB, generally 15$/hour for the behavioral studies and 30$/hour for the imaging. Let me know if the description sounds like you and you are interested in participating. If you are not sure if you fall into this group or not, we have our own set of tests that are fairly good at
picking out people with real difficulties."

The lab's website is here: http://vpnl.stanford.edu/

If you have any interest in working with him, his email address is witthoft@stanford.edu. I think he's looking for locals, since he wants people to come into his office to do the tests, but if you know anyone that might be interested, let them know.

Perception and Prosopagnosia

2009-07-22T10:44:00.002-05:00

This is an hour long presentation by Lynn Robertson, from UC Berkely, on prosopagnosia presented by the Google TechTalks Series.

MSNBC Story on Super-Recognizers

2009-05-29T10:16:00.001-05:00

Some people never forget a face - Behavior

MSNBC.com

Some people never forget a face

'Super-recognizers' have uncanny ability to remember everyone they meet

By Elizabeth Fernandez

msnbc.com contributor

updated 8:27 a.m. ET, Thurs., May 28, 2009

We've all had that sinking feeling: a person seems familiar, someone we might have once met, but somehow we just can't place the face.

Not Jennifer Jarett. She never forgets a face. Not even someone she met for just a moment, not even decades later.

Jarett is a "super-recognizer,'' a freshly minted term for an elite group of people who are exceptional at remembering faces.

"It's sort of a weird thing to be able to do,'' says Jarett, 38, a Manhattan resident who works as a city employee. "My friends refer to me as their memory. People's faces don't really change to me, even people from my childhood. It's as if they are cemented in my brain.''

Psychologists at Harvard University have discovered that Jarett shares her special knack with others, establishing for the first time that some people have superior skills at face recognition.

From face blind to super-vision
New research shows that there's a broad range of face-recognition ability, a spectrum ranging from the "face blind'' to those on the opposite end with superior powers of perception.

"Super-recognizers actually see faces differently,'' says Dr. Richard Russell, a researcher in the Harvard Vision Sciences Laboratory and lead author of the new study published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. "They can recognize people out of context, people who aren't important to them, people who they may have met only briefly.''

Russell and his colleagues were investigating developmental prosopagnosia, a condition in which people have normal vision but are unable to recognize faces, even those of close relatives — an estimated 2 percent of the general population has exceptionally poor face-recognition ability.

Amid the research, the scientists were contacted by Jarett and several others claiming to have stellar recognition abilities.

Intrigued, the scientists concocted a battery of difficult tests. One, called Before They Were Famous, required the subjects to identify famous individuals as children. All four test subjects passed the experiments with high marks.

"My boyfriend called me a freak of nature,'' says Christine Erickson, 42, a stay-at-home mother of two in Boston, one of the super-recognizers. Erickson once had a chance encounter with a woman who years earlier had been her waitress.

"She had transformed from being an edgy-looking urban hipster to having long hair and looking completely different,'' says Erickson. "I flipped through my mental files and recognized her.''

Super-recognizer or, um, stalker?
To their chagrin, super-recognizers have learned that their special gifts are not always appreciated.

"People sometimes give me strange looks, like I was stalking them,'' says Jarett.

Riding the subway about a year ago, she recognized a man who once worked for her hairdresser.

"I said 'You were Barry's assistant.' He looked at me funny — it had been five years. So I said 'Oh, the reason I remember you is because you did such a good job blowing out my hair.' He seemed really flattered.''

Jarett hasn't found any particular use for her skill, but the study says benefits might surface. For instance, airport security employees could be screened for their ability to recognize faces, and eyewitnesses to crimes could similarly be assessed.

Tips for ordinary folks
For people with average ability, Dr. Jim Tanaka, a professor of psychology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, who is not connected with the new study, offers a few tips to enhance recognition.

"Pay close attention to the dynamics of the face — the movement, the expressions, the different angles,'' says Tanaka, who studies cognitive and neurological processes underlying face recognition.

Also, he says, put less emphasis on superficial cues that can change over time, such as hairstyles and eyeglasses.

"Try to remember the structural aspects of the face instead of incidental surface features,'' he says. "Don't focus too much on details, but rather form an overall, holistic impression of a person's face.''

As for Jarett, she's thrilled with her new scientific designation.

"My friends and I joke that I should get a cape with a big S on it,'' she says. "When I was little, I always wanted to have super powers. Now I'm finally getting to fulfill my childhood dream.''

Elizabeth Fernandez is a writer based in San Francisco.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30945729/

MSN Privacy . Legal

New Topographical Agnosia Group

2009-05-24T09:21:00.004-05:00

Since many of us with Prosopagnosia also have topographagnosia, ot Topographica Agnosia, or Topographical Agnosia, or Navigational Agnosia, or Topographical Disorientation (let's jsut call it TA, alright?), I decided to start a Yahoo Group where we could discuss are trials and tribulations of living with TA. Feel free to join the group and join the discussion.

It would be nice to create a number of real-life stories there, so people who are looking to diagnose themselves could go there, read, and become more familiar with the condition.

If you would like to subscribe, send an email here:
PlaceBlind-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Please indicate why you are interested in subscribing.
You can find the group under the name Topographical Agnosia.

'Super-recognizers - Opposite of Prosopagnosics?

2009-05-21T12:54:00.001-05:00

'Super-recognizers,' with extraordinary face recognition ability, never forget a face

this link from EurekaAlert!

Contact: Amy Lavoie
amy_lavoie@harvard.edu
617-496-9982
Harvard University

'Super-recognizers,' with extraordinary face recognition ability, never forget a face

Research suggests that face recognition may vary more than previously understood

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 19, 2009 – Some people say they never forget a face, a claim now bolstered by psychologists at Harvard University who've discovered a group they call "super-recognizers": those who can easily recognize someone they met in passing, even many years later.

The new study suggests that skill in facial recognition might vary widely among humans. Previous research has identified as much as 2 percent of the population as having "face-blindness," or prosopagnosia, a condition characterized by great difficulty in recognizing faces. For the first time, this new research shows that others excel in face recognition, indicating that the trait could be on a spectrum, with prosopagnosics on the low end and super-recognizers at the high end.

The research is published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, and was led by Richard Russell, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at Harvard, with co-authors Ken Nakayama, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard, and Brad Duchaine of the University College London.

The research involved administering standardized face recognition tests. The super-recognizers scored far above average on these tests—higher than any of the normal control subjects.

"There has been a default assumption that there is either normal face recognition, or there is disordered face recognition," says Russell. "This suggests that's not the case, that there is actually a very wide range of ability. It suggests a different model—a different way of thinking about face recognition ability, and possibly even other aspects of perception, in terms of a spectrum of abilities, rather than there being normal and disordered ability."

Super-recognizers report that they recognize other people far more often than they are recognized. For this reason, says Russell, they often compensate by pretending not to recognize someone they met in passing, so as to avoid appearing to attribute undue importance to a fleeting encounter.

"Super-recognizers have these extreme stories of recognizing people," says Russell. "They recognize a person who was shopping in the same store with them two months ago, for example, even if they didn't speak to the person. It doesn't have to be a significant interaction; they really stand out in terms of their ability to remember the people who were actually less significant."

One woman in the study said she had identified another woman on the street who served as her as a waitress five years earlier in a different city. Critically, she was able to confirm that the other woman had in fact been a waitress in the different city. Often, super-recognizers are able to recognize another person despite significant changes in appearance, such as aging or a different hair color.

If face recognition abilities do vary, testing for this may be important for assessing eyewitness testimony, or for interviewing for some jobs, such as security or those checking identification.

Russell theorizes that super-recognizers and those with face-blindness may only be distinguishable today because our communities differ from how they existed thousands of years ago.

"Until recently, most humans lived in much smaller communities, with many fewer people interacting on a regular basis within a group," says Russell. "It may be a fairly new phenomenon that there's even a need to recognize large numbers of people."

###

The research was funded by the U.S. National Eye Institute and the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council.

Radio Program touches on Faceblindness

2009-03-23T22:18:00.001-05:00

Something You Should Know radio program - The Crazy Things People Do

Transcripts

August 8, 2008
The Crazy Things People Do
Interview with Andrew Williams, author of Are You Crazy?

Mike Carruthers:
People are weird. So many people do so many weird things that maybe being weird is normal. For example, do you know a lot of people suffer from something called face blindness?

Andrew Williams:
Approximately 5 million Americans are believed to suffer with face blindness. And face blindness is the inability to recognize people from their faces.

Andrew Williams, author of the book Are You Crazy?...

Individuals who have this cannot recognize their children, their spouses, people they work with; and those people who have it often report that if they stand on their head and look at faces upside-down, it's easier for them to recognize the individual.

It just may be that we all have something weird about us so maybe we need to be a little more understanding of people who have things like face blindness . . .

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.

--
dori

646-734-5211

Condition That Makes Prosopagnosia Even More Difficult

2008-11-05T11:52:00.001-05:00

Prosopagnosia Radio interview: "There was an interview on BBC today (Monday 27th) - Brad Duchaine talking about phonagnosia......

Hear it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/pm/

It's about 45 mins into the programme."
Scroll the circular indicator to 41 minutes; the interview ends at around 46 minutes.

The story is about a woman who can't distinguish voices so she can't identify people
she knows by their voice. Brad Duchaine was interviewed

Taxi drivers 'have brain sat-nav'

2008-09-15T06:49:00.002-05:00

Here is an article of interest from BBC News website for those with Topographic Agnosia, an orientation disorder which often appears in people who have prosopagnosia.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Taxi drivers 'have brain sat-nav': "Taxi drivers 'have brain sat-nav'
By Elizabeth Mitchell
Science reporter, BBC News

Sid James in a London cab (BBC)
The knowledge: London cabbies are famous for knowing their way around

Scientists have uncovered evidence for an inbuilt 'sat-nav' system in the brains of London taxi drivers.

They used magnetic scanners to explore the brain activity of taxi drivers as they navigated their way through a virtual simulation of London's streets.

Different brain regions were activated as they considered route options, spotted familiar landmarks or thought about their customers.

The research was presented at this week's BA Science Festival.

Earlier studies had shown that taxi drivers have a larger hippocampus - a region of the brain that plays an important role in navigation.

Their brains even 'grow on the job' as they build up detailed information needed to find their way around London's labyrinth of streets - information famously referred to as 'The Knowledge'.

'We were keen to go beyond brain structure - and see what activity is going on inside the brains of taxi drivers while they are doing their job,' said Dr Hugo Spiers from University College London.

Taxi driver's brain
(click on diagram to enlarge)

The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to obtain 'minute by minute' brain images from 20 taxi drivers as they delivered customers to destinations on "virtual jobs".

The scientists adapted the Playstation2 game "Getaway" to bring the streets of London into the scanner.

After the scan - and without prior warning - the drivers watched a replay of their performance and reported what they had been thinking at each stage.

"We tried to peel out the common thoughts that taxi drivers tend to have as they drive through the city, and then tie them down to a particular time and place," said Dr Spiers.

The series of scans revealed a complex choreography of brain activity as the taxi drivers responded to different scenarios.

The hippocampus was only active when the taxi drivers initially planned their route, or if they had to completely change their destination during the course of the journey.

The scientists saw activity in a different brain region when the drivers came across an unexpected situation - for example, a blocked-off junction.

Another part of the brain helped taxi drivers to track how close they were to the endpoint of their journey; like a metal detector, its activity increased when they were closer to their goal.

Changes also occurred in brain regions that are important in social behaviour.

Taxi driving is not just about navigation: "Drivers do obsess occasionally about what their customers are thinking," said Dr Spiers.

Animals use a number of different mechanisms to navigate - the Sun's polarized light rays, the Earth's magnetic fields and the position of the stars.

This research provides new information about the specific roles of areas within the brains of expert human navigators.

"Something You Should Know" - Mentions Faceblindness

2008-08-11T06:36:00.001-05:00

Transcript from radio show "Something You Should Know" with Mike Carruthers

August 8, 2008
The Crazy Things People Do
Interview with Andrew Williams, author of Are You Crazy?

Mike Carruthers:
People are weird. So many people do so many weird things that maybe being weird is normal. For example, do you know a lot of people suffer from something called face blindness?

Andrew Williams:
Approximately 5 million Americans are believed to suffer with face blindness. And face blindness is the inability to recognize people from their faces.

Andrew Williams, author of the book Are You Crazy?...

It just may be that we all have something weird about us so maybe we need to be a little more understanding of people who have things like face blindness or something called pica.

Pica, or P I C A, this is eating foods that are not usually food items: coins, ash, cigarette butts, soap and coffee grounds.

It often starts in childhood, says Andrew, when kids start putting strange things in their mouths and an extreme case of pica…

It happened just last year where a 62-year-old man went to the emergency room because he had a total of 360 coins in his stomach.

And speaking of eating things…

There are individuals who are afraid to eat what they refer to as concealed food. And that is food that they can't see the inside of. So something like ravioli, they would be afraid to eat it because they don't know what's inside.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.

The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet » Blog Archive » Face Blindness

2008-01-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

Follow this link for a video of the Prosopagnosia segment this morning (Jan 5th) on this FOX morning show. Much longer segment than I usually see. They did a good job letting the people with prosopagnosia try and explain what it is like and how they cope. Brad Duchaine provided the credibility, being one of the top researchers in this field It is so exciting to see this kind of mainstream coverage!

The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet » Blog Archive » Face Blindness: "Videos » Health »

*
Face Blindness
*

Can you imagine a world where you never see a single familiar face? M&J take an in-depth look at a medical condition whose sufferers can’t recognize other people — including their own children!

For more on this topic, visit http://www.faceblind.org"

The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet

2008-01-04T07:34:00.000-05:00

The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet

There will be a feature on prosopagnosia today on this FOX morning show.

Brad Duchaine the well known London Prosopagnosia researcher, will be on the show around 9am, live via satellite from L.A. In the New York Studio, there will be a handfull of prosopagnosics to discuss their condition with the hosts. More media coverage to spread the word!

UK Mirror Prosopagnosia Article

2007-11-26T13:35:00.000-05:00

Everyone looks the same to me

By Kelly Strange 09/11/2007

"The hall was booked and the invitations sent out. Mary Ann Sieghart and her husband David had been looking forward to their joint birthday party for months.

But as the day drew nearer they started to dread the event. Though many of the 200 guests had been friends or colleagues for years, Mary Ann knew she had little chance of recognising anyone except her immediate family.

And she couldn't rely on husband David for help as, incredibly, he also suffers from the same rare condition that means they can't distinguish one person from another by their faces.

Prosopagnosis, which means they are both face blind, has also hit the couple's daughter Evie, 16, and Mary Ann's mum, Felicity Ann. Their other daughter, Rosa, 14, is unaffected.

Remarkably, Mary Ann even held down a high-powered job on a national newspaper.

She says: "It's a great source of social embarrassment as I just can't remember if I know that person and if I do, where I might know them from.

"Of course, we knew everybody who was coming to our party but, out of context, we knew we'd have no chance of working out who they were and we couldn't even help each other."

The couple eventually spent most of the night last August trying to memorise what each guest was wearing so they could remember who was who for the evening.

"I can usually cope by bluffing my way through but, of course, with so many people that was always going to be difficult," says David, 55.

And it's typical of the way the condition affects the family's daily lives. "We've always been useless at parties and usually spend the whole evening whispering 'who was that?' to each other so you can imagine how nervous we were holding our own," says Mary Ann, 46.

"My daughter even joked that we should all have T-shirts saying 'Don't blame me, I'm prosopagnosic' to get us out of tricky social situations.

"It's awful when people think you're being rude by not recognising them even though you might see them every day."

Mary Ann first became aware of it when she was eight. Reading her favourite Enid Blyton adventures she was amazed by the way the children were able to give such accurate descriptions of the baddies to the police.

"I remember thinking I wouldn't know where to start and I certainly wouldn't be able to recognise them," she says.

Her mother had also been terrible with faces and the pair often joked that Mary Ann must take after her.

Then, as a teenager watching movies, Mary Ann realised she was struggling to keep up with the plots because she couldn't tell one character from another.

She says: "Me and my brother watched a film with Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.

When it had finished he asked me which character was which and I had to confess that I didn't have a clue.

"Both were good-looking with blue eyes so there was nothing to help me tell one from the other."

Again, Mary Ann and her family just put it down to her being bad with faces, the way some people are with names. But things got even harder when she went to university.

Each day brought a sea of new faces and Mary Ann was constantly apologising for not knowing people, even though she'd already met them several times.

"I felt so guilty for having to keep asking somebody their name and who they were when they clearly already knew me," she says. "Some people thought I was lazy or uninterested but nothing could have been further from the truth."

Slowly she started to remember the names of her friends, relying on things like the colour of their bag, the length of their hair and the style of their glasses. Of course, that meant she'd be back to square one again if that person changed their appearance. "If a friend had their hair cut I could easily pass them in the street and not have a clue who they were," she says.

It was even harder if a person had symmetrical features, as a big nose or wonky ears helped trigger her recognition. So Mary Ann developed strategies that would help her learn a person's name without having to offend them by asking again. "If I was standing with one person I couldn't remember and then another approached that I also didn't recognise I would invite them to introduce themselves to each other, which would give me both their names."

In 1986 Mary Ann was introduced to David. One of the many things they had in common was that he was also "bad with faces".

"I'd always thought I just had a bad memory," explains David. And when they married in 1989, David joked that they should ask their guests to wear name badges.

The couple couldn't even do normal things like watch films - Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise look identical to them.

Even when their eldest daughter Evie started to show signs of being unable to recognise patterns aged seven, the couple still assumed it was just one of those things. Mary Ann's mum had been the same and now it seemed their daughter would be too.

Her teacher suggested Evie see a educational psychologist who was shocked when she struggled to put together a six-piece puzzle of a human face. But still she wasn't diagnosed.

She had problems recognising friends, too. "Once she told me she'd met a nice friend, she didn't know her name or what she looked like, only that she wore a red jumper," says Mary Ann.

"I had to point out that the girl might not wear a red jumper every day so Evie had to work out another way of recognising her."

Then in July last year Mary Ann read an article about prosopagnosis.

Amazed, she realised she had all of the symptoms, as did her husband, daughter and mother.

"I was so excited. I knew instantly that there was no question I had this condition. I wasn't forgetful, I wasn't uninterested, I had a real medical condition," she says.

She volunteered to be tested by a professor researching prosopagnosis at University College London. A series of tests confirmed that Mary Ann was indeed prosopagnosic.

"It was a relief to be officially told that the problem was not my fault," she says. Shortly afterwards Evie, David and Felicity Ann were also diagnosed with the same condition.

Felicity Ann, 80, was delighted to have a diagnosis after so many years and now suspects her father had the condition too.

She says: "Back in my childhood people weren't interested in a problem unless you were in pain.

"It was an enormous effort to try and hide that I didn't know who I was talking to, especially at work.

"Even now I find it easier to smile at everybody I meet, that way I can't offend somebody by not knowing them."

But luckily nobody in the family has the most severe form of the condition, which leaves sufferers unable to identify members of their own family or even themselves in the mirror.

Scientists are still trying to discover why the area of the brain that processes faces has not developed in prosopagnosics.

But, knowing they have a neurological problem is enough for the family as they can now confidently explain away why they can't recognise a friend or colleague.

David, who is less severely affected, still prefers to bluff his way through introductions as explaining the unusual condition is simply too complicated.

But Mary Ann says: "At last I can tell people I'm not being rude and ask them not to be offended, though sadly some still are. I find this particularly difficult. Perhaps we will take up Evie's T-shirt idea after all."

My Brilliant Brain: Make Me A Genius, is on National Geographic Channel this Sunday at 8pm."

I loved this article, because it gives that many more people an idea of what it is like to have Prosopagnosia. The more people know, the less I have to explain:)

I too could never tell Paul Newman and Steve McQueen apart.

This article is from www.Mirror.co.uk

The Faceblind View: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2007-07-27T22:54:00.000-05:00

Andrea, over at Faceblind View (movie and television reviews from a prosopagnosic perspective) just posted her review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Its the latest in the Harry Potter movie series.

The Faceblind View: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (in IMax 3D!): "Being such a huge Harry Potter fan, it's hard for me to tell how easy the characters of the latest installment would be to tell apart. I mean, I've read this book twice, I've seen all the other movies and read the books, and therefore I know what's going to happen. I know who should be doing what.

If this describes you too, you won't have any trouble with this movie. The one time I had even a speck of face trouble was a moment when Hermione was standing next to Harry in the room of requirement and she had her bushy hair pulled back. I didn't realize it was her until she talked. But it wasn't important to the plot."

Strangely enough, the one spot I remember having trouble identifying someone in the movie was nearly the same as the one Andrea had trouble with. Hermione was standing in the room of requirements, facing another student who was supposed to practice casting a spell on her. She had been in the room in a few different shots, but when I suddenly saw her alone standing opposite the other student, I didn't recognize that it was her. I asked G "who is that girl?". I did not realize why at the time, but I guess it must have been the hair?

Follow the link to Faceblind View to read the great description of all the characters, plus a review of the 3-D effects available when you see The Order of the Phoenix at an IMax theater. I especially recommend PA's read it before seeing the movie if they have not read the book.

Face to Face Networking Takes On a Whole New Meaning

2007-07-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

This post by Andrea gives insight into some of the extra effort a prosopagnosic goes through at work trying to avoid social missteps.

Social Captioning « Andrea’s Buzzing About:

The primary problem of being faceblind is not only do I not recognise people — rather, I have to consciously identify them — but that my abilities to do so fade over time, so people whom I used to be able to figure out will become strangers again for lack of regular contact. The secondary, and somewhat insidious part of being faceblind is that it plays hell with “networking”. I never know as many of my coworkers or peers when I am around them, and cannot keep track of them later on as useful contacts.

When I interview for jobs, talk to people at conferences, or attend meetings it is profoundly difficult for me to remember with whom I spoke, even though I write down names and titles. I’ve tried taking down covert notes, like “Mr M: mustache, coördinates program, office 2nd floor”. But then later on I find that knowing Mr M has a mustache isn’t useful, because later on I will be around two more mustached guys of the same “type” who are all in the same environment, and that I never talk with Mr M in his office on the 2nd floor. I will later come to know Mr M by the particular shape of his balding pate and the way he wears his mobile phone on his belt, but when I am taking those notes, those are not the features that are first noticeable.

There’s also a Ms B at the meeting, but I won’t know until a month later that she was the one whom I really needed to “map” out as a contact. Yet another month more after that realisation, I will finally ascertain that she was one of the people with whom I chatted at that initial meeting. Making that important connection required a lot of careful analysis, drawing connections and ruling out confounds between dissimilar data sets, as though I am playing a particularly difficult level of Sudoku involving personnel instead of numbers. In a Sudoku game, there’s always a ninth that has just a couple of numbers provided, so it’s the square with the numbers that are filled in last, through pains-taking analyses of extensive subsets of if-then algorithms.

Its a very thoughtful post and the puzzle analogy is spot on. I also feel like I am always trying to fit together pieces of a puzzle.

Are You Prosopagnosic? A list of questions to help you tell.

2007-07-16T12:14:00.000-05:00

This is a link from a story in the Boston Globe a year ago. It is interesting to read the questions that have been developed to help recognize if someone is prosopagnosic. Kind of an initial screening you can try on yourself. Would you have trouble answering these questions affirmatively?

Identifying face-blindness - The Boston Globe:
June 14, 2006

Some questions used to determine whether someone may have prosopagnosia:

Would you have problems finding your party's table in a restaurant?

Would you recognize a famous actor or politician, if you saw him or her unexpectedly in the street or in a restaurant?

If somebody looked into your office, asked a questions and left, would you be able to recognize him or her some minutes later in a group of people?

At larger functions or parties, do you talk to someone for a couple of minutes and then find you can't remember his or her face a few minutes later?

Picture yourself in mall or at the airport: If someone you don't recognize greets you and starts talking to you in a very familiar way, what do you do? (Typical answer from someone who has trouble recognizing faces: I would try to find out from his or her voice and from the subjects discussed, who he or she might be.)
SOURCE: Thomas Grüter

Follow the link for an additional list of resources.

"2 Crabs" Blogger Realizes He Is Faceblind

2007-07-12T12:44:00.000-05:00

Another one! Found this blogger talking about his realization that he is probably prosopagnosic after viewing Good Morning America's Pa piece. Many people know that something is not right with them, but seeing a story like this helps them finally put a name to it. Judging from the way Mr. Crabs describes his problem, it sounds like he definitely is prosopagnosic.

2 Crabs: The Absent-Minded Expat

Although I've always had a pretty decent memory, I've never been good at recognizing or remembering names and faces. I'm a complete blank. Everyone looks exactly the same to me. I'm a complete blank with faces, not a good thing when you're a journalist. Occasionally, somebody will come up to me on the street and say "Oh, hello Mr. Crab!" and launch into a conversation, while I'm standing there smiling, listening, and thinking to myself, "Who the HELL is this person!?!?" When I'm with Mrs. Crab, it's a bit easier because I can flash her a silent, inquisitive look as if to say, "Throw me a bone -- who is this and how do we know him/her?," at which point she'll insert a clue or two into the next sentence.

Turns out there is actually a medical condition for this problem with the really original name of " Faceblindness." The scientific name is prosopagnosia. I think I may have a less severe version of this memory impairment. So now I have a scientific excuse for not remembering you!

Faceblindness: Video From Good Morning America

2007-07-11T16:48:00.000-05:00

Here is the link to the video that was on American television this morning. It was seen on ABC's Good Morning America.

ABC News: Faceblindness: Forgetting Familiar Faces: "How would you feel if your wife or mother didn't recognize you across a crowded room?

For Elaine Scheib's family, it was a reality. Scheib, who has perfectly normal vision, could not recognize the face of her husband, Bill, until they had dated for a year, and it took four years before she memorized her children's faces.

Scheib is part of the 2 percent of the population that suffers from a condition called prosopagnosia, also known as faceblindness, according to Harvard University professor Ken Nakayama, who has studied faceblindness extensively.

People with the disorder, which can lead to severe social problems, lack sufficient wiring in the part of the brain that recognizes faces. For doctors, it provides insight into how the brain functions."

First the Wall Street Journal this week, and now this. I am so happy! I find it very difficult to tell people I have this, because it requires so much explaining, and often people don't think its real. The more people know about it, the lower the barrier to being able to discuss it with them.

ABC News: Meet a Family Whose Members Don't Recognize One Another

2007-07-11T16:40:00.000-05:00

ABC News: Meet a Family Whose Members Don't Recognize One Another: "Some people never forget a face.

But for 40 years, Sellers, a college English professor, has never been able to remember one. Even a face she's known since birth.

'I wouldn't be able to recognize my mother out of context if she was walking down the street. And then, along with that, I mistake people for her,' Sellers said."

I have had this same problem, not with my mother (I usually hear her coming:), but with my sister. It is the most disorienting, disconcerting feeling in the world. I can usually recognize my husband G, but I have walked by him enough times to not take it for granted. Thankfully, he often wears a baseball cap, so I just have to memorize which one he is wearing on any given day.

PA Article in Wall Street Journal

2007-07-05T12:27:00.000-05:00

Mysteries of the 'Faceblind' Could Illuminate the Brain - WSJ.com: PAGE ONE

YES! That's Page One! I went to the WSJ online and there was the print article in the "Page One" section.

IDENTITY PROBLEM
Strange Deficit Impairs
Ability to Recognize

By HEATHER WON TESORIERO
July 5, 2007; Page A1

MEDICAL MYSTERY

• What's New: Research into 'faceblindness' is examining links to brain functions, as well as improved ways to test for the condition.

• Coping: Patients say they compensate by recognizing people by their speech, hair or walking gait.

• Treatment Possibilities: Exercises used with autistic children are now being tested with prosopagnosia.

This is so exciting for me because the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is a U.S. based paper that we and many of our friends subscribe to. I find that it is so much easier to tell someone I have PA if they have already heard about it. There is a bit less skepticism and less explaining to do.

I realized this last week when a friend from the dog park casually revealed that he had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). He said it in passing, expecting not to have to explain it to me, since there has been so much publicity about it in the last 10 years that most people have a good idea of what it is.

I found myself envious of him for having the wider known neurological condition.

Drawing A Blank Face - Video

2007-07-05T11:25:00.000-05:00

Wall Street Journal Video

Here is a video by WSJ reporter Heather Won Tesoriero:

"Drawing a Blank Face
A London artist on Prosopagnosia, also know as "Face Blindness," and the difficulty in not recognizing friends and family. "

Also featured in the video is U.C. London- based Brad Duchaine, one of the leading researchers in prosopagnosia. He is the one who tested me also.

One more bit of information out there for people to help people understand prosopagnosia.

Prosopagnosia in Age Determination?

2007-07-04T14:14:00.000-05:00

In an article on Slate.com about a new law in Tennessee that requires anyone who wants to buy alcohol to be carded, regardless of age, because of the lack of ability of clerks to accurately determine age. There is mention of prosopagnosia in the final paragraph.

Can a bartender tell if you're underage? - By Torie Bosch - Slate Magazine: "The new law might be helpful for any Tennessean store clerks suffering from a disorder called prosopagnosia, or 'face blindness.' Prosopagnosia, which is sometimes associated with a stroke, autism, brain damage, or other neurological disorder, can limit an individual's ability to estimate age at all."

The frustrating thing is that the term prosopagnosia is introduced, but not explained. It is only linked to the lack of ability to estimate age, which is more a possible symptom of not being able to recognize/remember faces in general, and certainly not attributable to prosopagnosics in general. It also does not mention it can be developmental, as well as acquired through brain trauma.

Mechanisms of Deja Vu Explained

2007-06-08T09:52:00.000-05:00

Brain mechanism explains sense of deja vu | Lifestyle | Reuters: "By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Most people have had deja vu -- that eerie sense of having experienced something before -- but U.S. researchers have identified the part of the brain responsible for this sensation, and they think it may lead to new treatments for memory-related problems.

They said neurons in a memory center of the brain called the hippocampus make a mental map of new places and experiences, then store them away for future use.

But when two experiences begin to seem very much alike, these mental maps overlap and start to blur."

Of more interest to me was this quote "Tonegawa said the type of memory that allows people to quickly distinguish different faces and places fades with age."

Oh great! That means NT's (neurotypical face recognizers) will eventually be poor at recognizing faces too. Who will we rely on then? I am married to a good face recognizer, and though I am sure he gets tired of the constant questioning, it is so helpful to me to have him there to identify people for me. If he loses his memory for faces, I will be in a bad spot!

Typecasting « Andrea’s Buzzing About:

2007-05-21T15:37:00.000-05:00

Typecasting « Andrea’s Buzzing About:

Here is a very insightful post on Andrea's blog about recognizing people she sees everyday, inspired by a "twinning" incident. Twinning is what I call it when you see the same person several times and recognize them as that person, only to later find it was was two different, but somehow similar, people. This is not an unusual occurrence for Prosopagnosics.

A Web Site For PA Kids and Their Parents

2007-05-08T19:18:00.000-05:00

Find A Face Organization Web Site

Here is a brand new Prosopagnosic web site for Kids. Says the co-founder Anne Mills:

"It's there to provide a service for parents of children and children with Prosopagnosia and other adults interested in helping children with PA, and will be directed by it's members' concerns. Many of the current members do not have PA, as that isn't a requirement for membership.

We are looking for someone with a degree in child psychology, or related field to volunteer to contribute to a monthly question and answer column. Please email me at annemills80@findaface.org if you are interested."

This will be a good resource for teachers who need to be aware of the possibility of undiagnosed prosopagnosia in their students. Another good outlet to further public education.

Brain Man, One Man's Gift May Be The Key To Better Understanding The Brain - CBS News

2007-05-07T21:44:00.000-05:00

On the American television show "60 minutes", there was an interview with a Savant named Daniel Tamment. He is an Englishman, who is a 27-year-old math and memory wizard. The interview with Morley Safer can be seen in full here.

Daniel's is a fascinating case, but of particular interest to me is the statement he makes to Morley at the end of the interview:

"'One hour after we leave today, and I will not remember what you look like. And I will find it difficult to recognize you, if I see you again. I will remember your handkerchief. And I will remember you have four buttons on your sleeve. And I'll remember the type of tie you're wearing. It's the details that I remember,' Tammet tells Safer."

The problem he is describing sounds exactly like prosopagnosia. It would not be unusual for him to have PA, since he has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome—a mild form of autism. Prosopagnosia often occurs along with both of these conditions.

Mind Hacks: When faces fade

2007-04-22T23:15:00.000-05:00

This post originated from www.MindHacks.com. Specific post link in title.

A March 2005 article in New Scientist reports on a study on a type of inherited prosopagnosia, suggesting a genetic basis for face recognition.

The research was an international effort, led by husband and wife team, geneticists Thomas and Martina Grüter. Notably, Thomas has a particular interest in this area, as he has prosopagnosia himself.

Mind Hacks spoke to two members of the research team about this intriguing study: Thomas on his own experience of prosopagnosia and the genetics of face recognition, and neuropsychologist Hadyn Ellis on the implications for the developing field of 'cognitive genetics'. Follow the title links for the entire interviews.

* * *

Thomas and Martina are part of a team of geneticists from the Institute of Human Genetics in Münster, Germany. They became interested in how Thomas' condition seemed to run in families and decided to study it in more detail. They recruited neuropsychologists from Cardiff University, initiating an international effort to examine the genetic basis of face perception.

The main finding of the study was that prosopagnosia seemed to be inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion, meaning only a single gene from one parent is needed to cause the condition.

Could it really be the case that the development of face recognition relies on a single gene ? We tackled Thomas on this controversial interpretation, but first we wanted to know, what it is like having prosopagnosia? * * *
How did you first realise you were unable to recognise faces as well as other people?

When I didn't recognize my teachers in the street. Some didn't care, but others were not amused. Most of the time, I wasn't even aware that I had overlooked them, if so, they didn't say a word.

What is it like having prosopagnosia ? For example, do faces seem strange or distorted to you?

Faces look perfectly normal, they just fade in my memory very quickly. I can recognize emotions as well as other people, maybe better.

To most people, not being able to recognise faces would seem a great disability. Why do you think most people with hereditary prosopagnosia are not significantly impaired by their condition ?

They have had all of their life to cope with the problem. They have learned to recognize people by other features like gait [walking style] or voice. And, of course, like colorblind people, they cannot imagine how it feels to remember faces normally.

Face blindness is a common hereditary disorder

2007-04-19T20:02:00.000-05:00

This article on recent research into the hereditary type of prosopagnosia (HPA), which came out last summer. There are some statements I noted in bold type.

Face blindness is a common hereditary disorder: "Face blindness is a common hereditary disorder

"In the first study to examine whether the inability to recognize faces can be inherited, researchers found that it is in fact a common disorder that runs in families and is one of the most frequent disorders apparently controlled by a defect in a single gene. The study was published online June 30, 2006 in American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A, and is available via Wiley InterScience.

Prosopagnosia (PA) or face blindness is characterized by the inability to differentiate faces, except for the most familiar ones such as members of one's family. It can be caused by brain injury, but cases where the disorder appears to run in families have also been reported. In the first systematic study of hereditary prosopagnosia (HPA), researchers led by Ingo Kennerknecht, M.D. of the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Muenster in Germany, recruited 689 subjects from local secondary schools and a medical school and administered a questionnaire to identify those with suspected HPA. They found 17 cases of the disorder, and of the 14 subjects who consented to further interfamilial testing, all of them had at least one first degree relative who also had it."

"Nearly all affected persons report a problem in deciding immediately whether a face is known," the authors state. Subjects report uncertainty in social situations and the inability to visualize the faces of close relatives or recall mental images of trees, leaves, or birds. They generally have difficulty following TV programs or movies because they cannot tell similar actors apart. All of the PA subjects revealed that they used up to three different strategies for overcoming the disorder. In the compensation strategy, subjects attempt to recognize people by other characteristics such as voice, gait, clothing or hair color. In the explanation strategy, subjects have a ready set of excuses as to why they can't recognize someone, such as being deep in thought or needing new glasses. In the avoidance strategy, subjects try to avoid situations where they might be unable to recognize faces, such as large functions or crowded places.

Inability to recall images of trees, leaves, or birds? Hmmm, I've never heard that before. I would say I'm not affected in this way, but then its not something I have ever focused on. I've heard many prosopagnosics (PA's) have trouble recognizing cars, but I've tested on this and seem to do ok.

The summary hits the nail on the head regarding the 3 coping strategies. One of the reasons I finally decided to "come out" about PA (albeit slowly) was that I noticed I was lying ALL the time, trying to cover up for my lapses, and make sure people did not feel that I took them lightly. My most frequent excuse was probably "I didn't recognize you because I was in my own little world.", implying I was daydreaming, and, of course, I never do that.

Amazon.com: The Echo Maker: A Novel: Books: Richard Powers

2007-04-18T15:35:00.000-05:00

This is one of the few novels I have heard about that talks about prosopagnosia. The main character learns about the condition in the process of being diagnosed after a head injury.

Amazon.com: The Echo Maker: A Novel: Books: Richard Powers:

"Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A truck jackknifes off an 'arrow straight country road' near Kearney, Nebr., in Powers's ninth novel, becoming the catalyst for a painstakingly rendered minuet of self-reckoning. The accident puts the truck's 27-year-old driver, Mark Schluter, into a 14-day coma. When he emerges, he is stricken with Capgras syndrome: he's unable to match his visual and intellectual identifications with his emotional ones. He thinks his sister, Karin, isn't actually his sister—she's an imposter (the same goes for Mark's house). A shattered and worried Karin turns to Gerald Weber, an Oliver Sacks–like figure who writes bestsellers about neurological cases, but Gerald's inability to help Mark, and bad reviews of his latest book, cause him to wonder if he has become a 'neurological opportunist.' Then there are the mysteries of Mark's nurse's aide, Barbara Gillespie, who is secretive about her past and seems to be much more intelligent than she's willing to let on, and the meaning of a cryptic note left on Mark's nightstand the night he was hospitalized. MacArthur fellow Powers (Gold Bug Variations, etc.) masterfully charts the shifting dynamics of Karin's and Mark's relationship, and his prose—powerful,"

prosopagnosia - Definitions from Dictionary.com

2007-04-17T18:00:00.000-05:00

American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary - Cite This Source

pros·o·pag·no·sia (prs-pg-nzh, -z-)
n.

An inability or difficulty in recognizing familiar faces; it may be congenital or result from injury or disease of the brain.

Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary - Cite This Source

Main Entry: pros·op·ag·no·sia
Pronunciation: "präs-&p-ag-'nO-zh&
Function: noun
: a form of visual agnosia characterized by an inability to recognize faces

On-line Medical Dictionary - Cite This Source

prosopagnosia

prosopagnosia: in CancerWEB's On-line Medical Dictionary

3 lbs - Available on iTunes

2007-04-16T10:48:00.000-05:00

I just found out you can also buy the 3lbs episode on iTunes for 1.99. It's the one called 'Heart Stopping'.

Here's a URL for it on the the iTunes Music Store
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewVideo?id=207093333&p=205451654&s=143441

There are four episodes up, even though only three aired.

3 lbs is on BBC1

2007-04-16T10:41:00.000-05:00

3 lbs: CBS's cancelled Neurology Drama

I loved this show because there was some fun neuroscience stuff going on in the background as the personal drama of the characters played out. I was truly excited to see the third episode include a story line about Prosopagnosia. Unfortunately, that was the last episode we here in the U.S. were able to see, as the show was cancelled.

I just got a tip that the show is now airing in the UK. The face blind episode has already aired. It's on Sundays, BBC1, at 10.45pm. You might be able to find the episode repeated at some other time. I don't know how many episodes they will continue with in the UK, but if you like brain science, its a great show.

Comic Book Illustration

2007-04-14T22:36:00.000-05:00

What I see when I look at you.

What I see in my mind when I look away. Hopefully your clothes, hair, or build are unique enough that I will remember you from them.

Faceblind Stuff: Items for Prosopagnosics : CafePress.com

2007-04-13T22:44:00.000-05:00

Faceblind Stuff: Items for Prosopagnosics : CafePress.com

"Always forget a face? Warn new acquaintances with this tee!"

Yeah! A t-shirt just for us prosopagnosics. Check out the link to all the different variations available. Very cool stuff. Here is the one I ordered:

New Scientist Short Sharp Science blog: Strange faces

2007-04-12T14:04:00.000-05:00

New Scientist Short Sharp Science blog: Strange faces

An entry on prosopagnosia on the New Scientist blog, the blogger himself/herself discovering they have it.

This quote is in reference to taking the Celebrity Faces test:

I tried the test and scored a rokkin’ 62%. The average is 85%, but considering how bad I am at recognising faces, I was pretty proud of myself. The ones I found easiest were the icons like Ghandi and Monroe. I had no idea who it was when presented with Jennifer Aniston or the Hoff. Perhaps mild prosopagnosics could provide a handy service by giving stars and politicians a celebrity rating – “You’re not coming in unless the prosopagnosic recognises you…”

I love this idea - prosopagnosics as the gaugers of fame.

Useless Facts

2007-04-12T12:29:00.000-05:00

Useless Facts - "Prosopagnosia refers to the inability to identify people by their faces. In severe cased (sic) prosopagnosia a person may not be able to identify themselves in a mirror."

I found this web site and quote while searching for information on prosopagnosia.

Ironic how one person's Useless Fact could be another person's life story.

Faceless Gym Member

2007-04-11T22:32:00.000-05:00

At the gym last night, I headed for my favorite piece of cardio equipment, the Cybex Arc Trainer. There are only two of the model I like, and one was empty. As I got closer to it, I realized there was a sign on it that said "temporarily out of service", so it wasn't available after all. The women working out on the one right next to the broken one offered hers to me as soon as she finished, which would be in 7 minutes. I thankfully accepted and moved over a few feet to the next cardio machine and began to stretch.

I faced away from her so she would not feel like I was anxiously looking over her shoulder, and took out a magazine to page through as I waited. A few minutes later, a woman walked up, stood right in front of me and smiled politely, like she wanted to get on the machine I was using as a stretching post. I asked if she wanted to use it, and with a puzzled look on her face she said "No, I finished with the Arc Trainer, you can use it now."

These are the times when I feel stupid, or more correctly, feel I appear stupid. If the woman knew about my prosopagnosia, she would have immediately understood why I didn't recognize her but, of course, I would never try to explain it during such a brief encounter. And the truth is, it never occurred to me that I wouldn't recognize her.

Even after all these years (I've been faceblind since high school) it still surprises me how bad I am at recognizing faces. Its almost like I wake up every day expecting to be able to recognize people facially just like everyone else. Apparently I'm blindly optimistic.

Wired Magazine Cover Personality

2007-04-06T23:19:00.000-05:00

Wired Magazine: "Special Feature: Get Naked and Rule the World

Get Naked and ...

Smart companies are sharing secrets with rivals, blogging about products in their pipeline, even admitting to their failures. The name of this new game is RADICAL TRANSPARENCY, and it's sweeping boardrooms across the nation. Even those Office drones at Dunder Mifflin get it. So strip down and learn how to have it all by baring it all."

I have seen this magazine cover on newsstands, and I watch "The Office" religiously, and yet, I had no idea this cover personality was the woman who plays Pam, the receptionist on The Office until Andrea mentioned it in the comments section of a previous post.

When I went to the WIRED website to grab an image of the current cover, I found the two shots of the same pose, one where Jenna Fischer is clothed, and one (even LESS recognizable, since I use clothing to help identify people) with her sans clothing behind the same generously sized sign. Totally different facial expression on her than you see on The Office + out of context = non-recognition.

Face Blind Humor

2007-04-06T17:08:00.000-05:00

Written by a fellow prosopagnosic:

I might not know you when we meet,
I might not know you on the street,
Not in a store,
Not at my door,
I might not know you here or there,
I might not know you anywhere.

--by Deb "Seuss"

And that about sums it up!

Culture Is Key To Interpreting Facial Emotions

2007-04-05T09:23:00.000-05:00

"Culture Is Key To Interpreting Facial Emotions"

Science Daily — Research has uncovered that
culture is a determining factor when interpreting
facial emotions. The study reveals that in
cultures where emotional control is the standard,
such as Japan, focus is placed on the eyes to
interpret emotions. Whereas in cultures where
emotion is openly expressed, such as the United
States, the focus is on the mouth to interpret
emotion.

Across two studies, using computerized icons and
human images, the researchers compared how
Japanese and American cultures interpreted
images, which conveyed a range of emotions.

'These findings go against the popular theory
that the facial expressions of basic emotions can
be universally recognized,' said University of
Alberta researcher Dr. Takahiko Masuda. 'A
person's culture plays a very strong role in
determining how they will perceive emotions and
needs to be considered when interpreting facial
expression.'

These cultural differences are even noticeable in
computer emoticons, which are used to convey a
writer's emotions over email and text messaging.
Consistent with the research findings, the
Japanese emoticons for happiness and sadness vary
in terms of how the eyes are depicted, while
American emoticons vary with the direction of the
mouth. In the United States the emoticons : ) and
: - ) denote a happy face, whereas the emoticons
:( or : - ( denote a sad face. However, Japanese
tend to use the symbol (^_^) to indicate a happy
face, and (;_;) to indicate a sad face.

When participants were asked to rate the
perceived levels of happiness or sadness
expressed through the different computer
emoticons, the researchers found that the
Japanese still looked to the eyes of the
emoticons to determine its emotion.

"We think it is quite interesting and appropriate
that a culture that tends to masks its emotions,
such as Japan, would focus on a person's eyes
when determining emotion, as eyes tend to be
quite subtle," said Masuda. "In the United
States, where overt emotion is quite common, it
makes sense to focus on the mouth, which is the
most expressive feature on a person's face."

These findings are published in the current issue
of The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
and are a result from a collaborative study
between Masaki Yuki (Hokkaido University),
William Maddux (INSEAD) and Takahiko Masuda
(University of Alberta). The results also suggest
the interesting possibility that the Japanese may
be better than Americans at detecting "false
smiles". If the position of the eyes is the key
to whether someone's smile is false or true,
Japanese may be particularly good at detecting
whether someone is lying or being "fake".
However, these questions can only be answered
with future research.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news
release issued by University of Alberta.
Copyright © 1995-2007 ScienceDaily LLC — All
rights reserved —

To Test or Not to Test?

2007-04-04T15:47:00.000-05:00

One of the decisions you may need to make as a Prosopagnosic (PA) is whether to get tested or not. Its something I decided to do awhile back, while visiting London (see previous posts). I also arranged to meet Matt, another PA from my FaceBlind group list, while I was there in London. We talked a lot about whether it was beneficial to get tested.

Once you do get tested there is the burning desire to make sense of whatever you've just learned about yourself, and it is often easiest to do this by comparing notes with someone else who has taken the tests, or at least, understands the condition. All these new thoughts come tumbling out of your mind, as you try to reconcile and reorder your own image.

I met Matt (see photo) just after I got tested, and wished he had already been, so I could talk to him about specifics of the different tests. There is an implied "code of silence" about the PA tests, so as not to bias the results of future test takers. Matt took the tests a week or so after I did, and had a similar reaction to the results.

What follows in a short set of text messages between Matt and I about his initial reaction to getting tested. I thought it was something other PA's might appreciate. Thanks to Matt for his permission to share these thoughts:

Matt: "I am possibly one of the worst people Dr. Brad has ever met. I found that exhausting. And funny - I laughed through most of it, esp putting the faces in order:)"

Me: "Yes! That was the tough one. Congrats, you're mad;)"

Matt: "Hooray for madness, then. I'm in a pub having a soothing beer on my own, but I'm bursting to tell people that my stupidity has a name now. Perhaps I won't tho."

Me: "Wish I was there to have a pint with you. Tell them all! Cheers!"

Matt: "You're right tho - the people who need to know are the strangers who wouldn't understand. Those I feel I can tell are the friends I can ID anyway. Eeek."

So in the end, you have an official diagnosis, and it is somewhat of a relief, but then who do you tell?

Recognizing Hands and Faces

2007-03-29T23:26:00.000-05:00

Dealing With Face Blindness - FOX16.com

I found this news story from last year - an interview with a woman about living with Prosopagnosia. There was a pertinent quote by the woman, Kathy, who was the subject of the story:

"Kathy says it's not that her vision is blurry, but instead faces are no more unique to her than hands are to us."

Now that I have started telling a few people about my Prosopagnosia, I am always looking for a way to explain it to people, and this is one of the better ones I have come across. We have all looked at people's hands, seen them, and then forgotten what they looked like once we walked away. Most people would be hard pressed to recognize someone else by hands alone.

The Faceblind View: Pan's Labyrinth review

2007-03-28T08:32:00.000-05:00

The Faceblind View: Pan's Labyrinth review

From Andrea's movie reviews for Prosopagnosics blog. Will you be able to tell the characters apart?

Prosopagnosia Key Words and Abbreviations

2007-03-27T08:09:00.000-05:00

This list is really helpful if you start reading more about Prosopagnosia. PA's tend to use a lot of abbreviations:) It is from www.Prosopagnosia.com (a few minor edits have been made).

List of words related to face-blindness.

AC - Autistics and cousins (sometimes seen, but seldom, on the face blind lists) (Bill)

AS - Abbreviation for "Asperger's syndrome". (Bill)

ASD - Autistic Spectrum Disorder. The acronym ASD is used on many lists that discuss
Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Aspergers Syndrome, Tourettes Syndrome, and (sometimes) Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. (Julianne Douglass`)

Aspergers syndrome - A condition where a person has a collection of neurological deficits, considered by some to be a less severe case of autism. Quite a few Aspergers are face blind, though not all face blind people have Aspergers. (Bill)

Autistic Spectrum - An umbrella term used to cover all of the conditions (autism, Asperger, Tourette, etc.) which are considered to be related with each other based upon their underlying criteria and severity with which they seem to affect the people who have have the condition. (Glenn)

CAPD - Abbreviation for "central auditory processing disorder". (Bill)

Central auditory processing disorder - a sound processing deficit in which sounds are scrambled in the brain. Quite a few face blind people have CAPD, though CAPD is quite common and most people with it are not face blind. (Bill)

Essences - a term covering demeanor, body language, and emotions, when these things are used as a face blind person's primary way of telling people apart. (Bill)

FB - face-blind (Cecilia)

fb-folks - The private mailing-list that is strictly for people with PA. More info can be found at
http://home.earthlink.net/~blankface/folks.shtml

fb-public - The public message board about PA found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/faceblind. (Cecilia)

FFA - Fusiform face area - the part of the brain some researchers believe recognizes faces (Bill)

fMRI - Abbreviation for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, a technique that shows what part of the brain is being used at a given instant (Bill)

Gorbachev effect - the situation that face blind people can all recognize someone with a striking physical difference. These are usually ugly differences because people strikingly beautiful tend to look quite average (origin: the statement that "all face blind people can recognize Gorbachev") (Bill)

Key traits - (or just "traits") - characteristics of others that a face blind person concentrates on in building his filing system for telling people apart (Bill)

NT - short for NeuroTypical, i.e., any person who has a "normal functioning" brain. Despite how this sounds, it is not considered a derogatory comment. John Smith would be a typical NT. (Glenn and Cecilia)

PA - prosopagnosia (Cecilia)

Place blind - common name for "topographic (or topographical) agnosia" (Bill)

Topographic agnosia - the inability to visualize and process places. This causes one to have difficulty with getting lost. Quite a few face blind people have topographic agnosia, though not all persons with either condition have the other. (Bill)

Good Map Feature

2007-03-10T00:17:00.000-05:00

Not only does downtown Houston, have street maps posted around the city core on lamp posts, it has also done a great job making the maps easily readable for Topographical (or navigational) Agnosics.

Each map is oriented to the specific spot where it is posted, so that UP on the map is always STRAIGHT AHEAD. If only all maps where posted like this.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Emotion robots learn from people

2007-02-25T15:24:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Technology | Emotion robots learn from people

Someday, robots will be able to recognize faces better than I can, which I guess, wouldn't be hard. This article is about teaching robots to recognize emotion in the face of humans. The ability to do this varies among Prosopagnosics. Some are good at recognizing emotions, while others are not.

According to the results I just received from my battery of tests taken at the Cognitive Neuroscience Dept. at the College of London, while I scored low on the ability to recognize faces, I still scored well on the ability to read emotions of faces before me. It is amazing how specialized some of our perceptive abilities are.

Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

2007-02-25T00:21:00.000-05:00

I had the hardest time finding the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, part of the College of London, where I went to be tested. I have never been able to find my way around indoors or out, and get lost trying to find my way back from bathrooms in restaurants. I found out from Dr. Duchaine that this problem is often seen in Prosopagnosics. It's called Topographical Agnosia. so that's my problem! Or one of them at least.

Cognitive Bias, Patterns & Pseudoscience « Andrea’s Buzzing About:

2007-02-14T23:02:00.000-05:00

Cognitive Bias, Patterns & Pseudoscience « Andrea’s Buzzing About:

This essay relates directly to the previous post, and explains the phenomena called pareidolia.

Facial Recognition - Brain - Faces, Faces Everywhere - New York Times

2007-02-14T22:58:00.000-05:00

Facial Recognition - Brain - Faces, Faces Everywhere - New York Times

While we Prosopagnosics don't always see the faces we are looking at, some people see faces in everyday objects.

Meeting Matt in London

2007-02-11T22:54:00.000-05:00

Matt from my online Faceblind group, as I posed him in bad light so I could get him with the London Eye in the background. Tourists.

We agree to meet while I was in London learning about and getting tested for Prosopagnosia (PA). We both thought it would be interesting to meet someone with a similar lack of ability for recognizing one another. He conveniently posted himself directly beneath Big Ben, and waved to me as I approached after spotting my unnaturally red hair. I was relieved after that hard part was over, and thankful that he had made it so easy. I always have trepidation when going to meet people.

Matt again, finishing his slides on the Carsten Holler Exhibit at Tate Modern in London.

It was interesting to hear his anecdotes, and quite refreshing to speak to someone who knows what it is like to be so confused on a regular basis.

Showing off his advanced wheelie style. It takes no facial recognition ability to enjoy a good slide.

Matt had previously met someone else from the same online group who actually lives just outside London and was featured in an article in the Times Educational Supplement which I will link to in a subsequent post.

This was my first meeting with another PA, and based on my meeting with Matt, I would highly recommend it.

One thing we ended up doing is comparing anecdotes, which always happens because you just want to be able to tell people the weird situations you live through, and have them understand. We discussed coping skills, which can be valuable. I also had lots of questions about coming out to people about PA and his experience with it. He has come out to more people than I have, even though he has known about his PA for a much shorter time, partly because it is better that way in his work environment, partly because he is more brave than me.

Matt has been in touch with Dr. Duchaine, and intends to be tested quite soon. I found myself desperately wishing, even as I was taking the tests before I met with him, that he had already taken the tests so I could compare the experience with him. It is just not the same talking to a Neurotypical (NT) person about your reaction to the tests. I guess that is a good reason for us to keep in touch.

Face blindness not just skin deep - CNN.com

2007-02-07T20:34:00.000-05:00

Face blindness not just skin deep - CNN.com

This week CNN aired a story on the person who started our online PA group. This is a link to a related article that contains a small video of him being interviewed.

Testing Day 1

2007-02-05T23:15:00.000-05:00

Finished the first day of testing with Dr. Duchaine. It was intense as I thought it would be, requiring serious concentration for a couple hours. The team at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, was amiable and low-key, which helped reduce the pressure (I'm very competitive) of testing. It is great to talk to people with such a depth of knowledge on this obscure subject.

It solidified some ideas I previously had about my own face perception ability, and connected the dots in other areas. I won' t go into detail about the tests or how I did on certain sections. My results were as I would have assumed in some areas, and surprising in others. I thought I did MUCH worse on one section than my scores showed, indicating that I may not have good grasp of my own ability.

At this pointI highly recommend getting tested. It really helped coalesce, in my mind, a definition of my specific case of Prosopagnosia. This will eventually help me tell my story to others.

Tomorrow, Day 2 of testing.

Prosopagnosia Links

2007-01-27T00:31:00.000-05:00

http://www.answers.com/topic/prosopagnosia
General Reference site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia
General Reference site.

http://www.choisser.com/faceblind/
Face blind book written by Bill Choisser, is a prosopagnosic from birth.

http://www.prosopagnosia.com/main/stones/index.asp
This site has a brilliant metaphor for face blindness which uses stones instead of faces. Many prosopagnosics really relate to this article.