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Faces

Marjorie195

I had a reply from Aoch re faces, and just tought I would answer as a new post.

I have difficulty with faces. One of my kids had a friend whose mother, I was totally unable to recognise. To make matters worse, my husband played squash against her. I never recognise her in the street, and I have heard that she thinks me incredably rude. Some faces are easier to remember than others. This problem can affect me when watching tv. Sometimes, I have difficulty disdinguishing characters in a program. I have to ask other people which person is on screen at the moment. I just give up on programs like that, too much like hard work.

I have read that some asd people have prognoposia (something like that). I think I may have a mild problem with that. I am realising that these things are more subtle than the books suggest.

I wonder if this affects our ability to read faces. Some are perhaps more readable than others. 

Parents

  • This is actually the one autism related symptom I have had tested: I had some memory tests after a head injury a few years ago and it confirmed I have a bad memory for names and faces.

    I'm fine with people and family I've known a long time, but often have difficulty recognizing people out of context

    I've been a tutor too, on short courses with groups up to 8. First lesson with a new group I'd write a crib sheet with who was sitting where.  I could then usually remember who was who for the length of the course.  If they came back for another course a few weeks later though I'd often have problems.

    Most tv shows I'm ok, though there's might be a few characters I lose track of, and I quite often couldn't tell you the characters name (I might recognise it if I saw or heard it).  One time I was watching a documentary on Scottish none-identical twin brothers, one of whom was 'black' and had been suffering racism. It didn't seem to be making sense to me.  Then I realised that I had the twins the 'wrong' way round: One twin had negroid features (broad nose, curly hair) and the particular pale cream skin and brassy red hair you sometimes get with mixed race. The other had mediteranian looks.  The thing is to me the 1st looked more like a black person, but it was actually the one I thought looked mediteranean that was getting the racism. So apparently NT's see skin colour before everything else that I see?

    In real life there's a guy I've been seeing and talking to every now and again for years while I'm out walking dogs. He has a small dog with him (sometimes a friend's too) and we've had some good discussions. Then recently I realised there were actually two of them. What's more now I've realised they look TOTALLY different! One has glasses, grey hair and square face and the other has red hair and is balding! I can see them fine but for some reason I'd just never classified them in a way that distinguished them before.

    By the way I have seen one representation of total prognoposia (ie being unable to recognise anyone) on a tv show: in the 1st series of the program 'Hannibal'.  In that they represented it as the person seeing faces as a blur, which is definitely not what I see. I think it's ok if you see that as a metaphor, but maybe some NT's will take it too literally (LOL). (Also a warning: Hannibal is a brilliant program if you don't mind horror. Very intelligent and creative. But it is extremely gruesome so don't watch if you don't like that)

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  • This is actually the one autism related symptom I have had tested: I had some memory tests after a head injury a few years ago and it confirmed I have a bad memory for names and faces.

    I'm fine with people and family I've known a long time, but often have difficulty recognizing people out of context

    I've been a tutor too, on short courses with groups up to 8. First lesson with a new group I'd write a crib sheet with who was sitting where.  I could then usually remember who was who for the length of the course.  If they came back for another course a few weeks later though I'd often have problems.

    Most tv shows I'm ok, though there's might be a few characters I lose track of, and I quite often couldn't tell you the characters name (I might recognise it if I saw or heard it).  One time I was watching a documentary on Scottish none-identical twin brothers, one of whom was 'black' and had been suffering racism. It didn't seem to be making sense to me.  Then I realised that I had the twins the 'wrong' way round: One twin had negroid features (broad nose, curly hair) and the particular pale cream skin and brassy red hair you sometimes get with mixed race. The other had mediteranian looks.  The thing is to me the 1st looked more like a black person, but it was actually the one I thought looked mediteranean that was getting the racism. So apparently NT's see skin colour before everything else that I see?

    In real life there's a guy I've been seeing and talking to every now and again for years while I'm out walking dogs. He has a small dog with him (sometimes a friend's too) and we've had some good discussions. Then recently I realised there were actually two of them. What's more now I've realised they look TOTALLY different! One has glasses, grey hair and square face and the other has red hair and is balding! I can see them fine but for some reason I'd just never classified them in a way that distinguished them before.

    By the way I have seen one representation of total prognoposia (ie being unable to recognise anyone) on a tv show: in the 1st series of the program 'Hannibal'.  In that they represented it as the person seeing faces as a blur, which is definitely not what I see. I think it's ok if you see that as a metaphor, but maybe some NT's will take it too literally (LOL). (Also a warning: Hannibal is a brilliant program if you don't mind horror. Very intelligent and creative. But it is extremely gruesome so don't watch if you don't like that)

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