Ah, it's....you. I'm always on my toes at the grocery store, ready to recognize and greet patients that I may have met only once in my life. I usually remember the faces and something personal, like where their children go to school, or where they work. But names? That's a problem mostly because new names seem to me like random tags without any associated memories to link them with a face.
What, however, of persons who can't recognize faces? This problem, dubbed prosopagnosia, can be so severe that these people have trouble identifying their nearest and dearest. Once thought to be rare as can be, researchers now believe that 2% of the general population have face blindness severe enough to affect their daily lives.
Are you in the facial know? Check out Faceblind for two little recognition quizzes. The first presents an array of famous faces that does require a certain visual knowledge of the famous and the infamous. During the second, you will have a small amount of time to familiarize yourself with twenty women, then will be asked to recognize them as they appear on your screen amonst the unknown. It's fun!
2 comments:
How timely! On Sunday I had a ten minute conversation at the grocery store with a very friendly, sincere gentleman. I didn't recognize his face until 3 or so minutes into the conversation. Then, it took another minute to realize where I'd known him from -- a gym I used to go to. Happily he had provided a casual context clue in the conversation. Meanwhile he was asking me about my work, my husband's work, the kids, the dogs, the house!! Yikes. At least he didn't say, "you have no idea who I am, do you?" Well, I racked my brain for the guy's name for two days and this morning I woke up and remembered his name, his wife and kids' names and where he works. So, I do have a brain. Just a tad slow.
So, I went and took these tests ..they tell me I'm way below average (I could have told them that!) and I want to go into psychology??? oh boy!
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