Summary
Prosopagnosia, aka face blindness, is a form of neurodiversity where people are not able to recognize faces. I have a mild form of this and it makes it difficult for me to have conversations at conferences and large events. It’s a good practice to introduce yourself to people when you don’t interact on a regular basis. Learn more about prosopagnosia and take a test to see how you fall on the range of facial recognition.
What is prosopagnosia, aka Face Blindness? In this article, Brad Pitt talks about his inability to recognize faces and how people mistake this as aloofness and disrespect: Brad Pitt opens up about suffering from undiagnosed prosopagnosia, or ‘face blindness’.
I have prosopagnosia.
I have a terrible time remembering names and faces. I used to think I was just lazy and not putting in enough effort to memorize and associate names with colors or animals. It’s especially frustrating as a photographer, as I’ve studied the face, lighting, and structure. But then I listened to a podcast about super recognisers: people who have an extreme ability to recognize faces. They have a test you can take to see where you land on the scale of facial recognition and I am in the lower 25%, frankly I guessed so much on the exam that I could be anywhere in that quartile.
If we meet and I don’t know your name, it’s not a personal insult. I’ll remember it 10 minutes later . . . hopefully. With the remote working of COVID, we’re all pretty rusty and it’s probably just a good habit of reintroducing ourselves as we go back to the office. This is especially true when we are wearing face masks.