Face blindness (prosopagnosia) refers to a difficulty in recognising faces.
Face blindness is more common than people realise. I have a moderate case of it. So does the neurologist Oliver Sacks, who is well-known for his book called The man who mistook his wife for a hat. In this book Sacks includes a chapter about a guy such a bad case of face blindness that he did in fact mistake his wife for a hat one day!
A dead-giveaway that you might have a bit of a face-blindness problem is that, while watching a movie, you often pipe up with, “Have we seen this character before?”
Or if your partner says to you during the movie “Do you recognise who that actor is?” and you say, most perplexed, “No? Who is it?” And it turns out to be some actor in your favourite TV series or something!
Take this test to see if you’ve got face blindness.
It takes about 10 minutes. You’ll be shown faces of famous people without their hair! You have to say who they are. You don’t have to know their name – you just have to know who they are. For example, a correct answer could be “Ah! That’s the actor with the squeaky voice!”
If it turns out you have some face blindness, ask other members of your family to take the test too — because face-blindness can run in families.
Here is another face blindness test – this time using unfamiliar faces.
Here is information about face blindness by the Harvard researchers who developed the tests. At the bottom of that web page are links to lots of fascinating articles and videos about face blindness, describing the funny social stuff-ups that can happen sometimes.
If you do have face blindness problems, it’s important to find out. This way you can control some of the social collateral damage face blindness can cause in your life!
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