Published on 12, July, 2020
Does anyone know much about prosopagnosia? Is there any links with autism? If so how can you get it diagnosed?
I am an autistic adult and I have always struggled to recognise places and people including myself in photographs, photographs always look different compared with what/who I visualise in my mind. In fact because of this I don't really take photographs because I don't see the point as they look nothing like what I wanted to capture in the first place.
Would welcome any advice on this
Thank you
I didn't used to have problems but after a brain injury in 2013 I now have great difficulty remembering faces unless there is something abnormal about them - like a Mohecan or an eye patch.
The engineer in me has analysed this and it seems to be that normal things are static - they never change - a car is a car from any angle, a chair is always the same. People are hugely variable from one moment to the next - their expression, hair colour, clothes, posture, make-up, hair style, they may be tired or happy, or any other facial changes. I need lots of extra data about the person to recognise them.
Some people are just so 'average' that nothing sticks - I simply cannot remember them.
If I try to remember people, I have no data - I recall them as two dots for eyes and nothing else.
I have difficulty spotting people from their photo as they often look too different for me to link them up.
I find a lot of women difficult to separate because make-up styles make them look so similar and generic.