Face blindness: people cannot recognize faces

Brad Bruchance (studies FB)

• concluded that people can see familiar faces but be incapable of recognizing them

• seeing faces upside down has a similar affect of FB

History: 1940’s (AFTER WW2)

• soldiers were incapable of recognizing wife’s faces (due to injury)

Facts:

• some are born FB

• people rely on body shape, hair, clothing style, way a person walks, etc to recognize them

  • when person changes hair, they automatically become unrecognizable

• cannot recognize own children

• people who are unaware of FB tend to get offended from lack of recognition

• 1/50 people may be affected

• face recognition ion works differently than other forms of recognition

• MRI was done to see where faces are recognized in brain (right temporal lob - fusiform face area)

• in many FB people, the fusiform face area is there, it is just not working in the way it should

People:

Chuck Close (artist):

• FB

• takes faces and paints them by chunks (grid)

• uses facial features to distinguish people (mustache, race, etc)

Oliver Sacks (doctor):

• FB

• wrote about FB

• people never discovered because to them not recognizing faces was their normal

Coleen Castaldo (developed in 2009)

• seizure that caused FB (removed tumor in area where FB is affected)

• was inable to recognize own best friend

Tim Mcdonough (13 y/o who was born w FB)

• fakes recognizing people

• doctors want to see if thy can help Tim become better at recognizing faces

• cannot recognizes own mother

• hard to make friends

Super recognizers:

• remembers all faces seen ever

• remembers faces even when people are young (including famous people)