Face Blindness

In class we have talked about prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face blindness. This disorder prevents people from being able to recognize faces of people the have met or know. Some people are even unable to recognize their own family members unless a cue is put to their face. Prosopagnosia is a disorder inherited through genes. About 2.5% of people in the world are believed to have this disorder through genetic inheritance. A small part of the underside of the brain allows people to be able to recognize faces. Damage to this part of the brain causes people to lose the ability to recognize people's faces and develop prosopagnosia.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/face-blindness-super-recognizer-try-online-tests-205200765.html

In the link posted above, it shows two sides to the disorder. The first video shows multiple people with prosopagnosia. One woman in particular was shown a picture of her daughter's face. At first she was told it was someone she knew. Then she was told it was someone in their family. After much thinking, she could not recognize the face. She was finally told that it was her own daughter. She was surprised she didn't get it, but after it was mentioned that it was her daughter, she said that she saw it. This is the brain trying to compensate for the damaged part of brain. It is using auditory parts of the brain to link faces to recognition rather than visual to faces. This disorder demonstrates the danger in any damage to the brain. I cannot imagine being unable to recognize my own family members.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, one woman is called a super recognizer. She has the ability to recall any face she has ever seen. The second video does a good job of showing how well she does this. She is shown a series of "before they were famous" celebrity photos. She clearly knew them right away seeing them. Once she revealed the name to us, we could finally link the face to the name. Try these two pictures for instance. See if you can guess them without looking at the answers below.

Vince Vaughn and Brad Pitt.

I will be willing to bet that it took you a while to recognize the faces or recognize them at all. But as soon as you read or hear the names, you can automatically recognize the face by relating it to present day faces. Crazy stuff the brain pulls on us.