Face blindness

CNN just posted an article about face blindness. I have never heard of this condition.

CNN breaks it down like this:

• Face blindness is an impairment in the ability to recognize faces
• Sufferers are usually able to see facial features but not retain them
• As many as one in 50 people may have some form, researchers theorize

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/...ness/index.html

I sometimes don't recognize people but that's because I only met them for less than 60 seconds, and it's usually at a party so it's dark. I don't see them again for months, and their hairstyle has changed, they might be wearing different amounts of makeup, and hopefully they are wearing different clothes.

Facial recognition is supposed to be a core human ability. I remember hearing about some research into people who are really really into cars. These are people who know everything about not just a model of car, but each car itself. They can pick two seemingly identical cars apart. Well, they found out that the parts of their brain that gets activated when looking at cars is the same region that gets activated when most people look at faces.

I only get face blindness of sleep deprivation origin. However, I think I have car blindness. It looks like a car to me. I also have luggage blindness. Everyone's luggage looks like mine, which is why I resorted to slapping big ugly stickers on my suitcase when I used to travel a lot.

I don't think I have face blindness, but I know I will look at my students and call them the wrong name. I never understood why my mother would call me by my sister, brother, dog or cats name. So I guess some of that wore off on me.

QUOTE (Julie @ Feb 8 2007, 06:18 PM)

I never understood why my mother would call me by my sister, brother, dog or cats name. So I guess some of that wore off on me.

I think that's not any sort of blindness... that might just be trauma.