Prosopagnosia is a neurological condition characterized by the inability to recognize the faces of similar people. People with this condition have difficulty recognizing family members, close friends and even themselves. Prosopagnosic's have a hard time knowing whether they have seen a face before which can result in a variety of social and relationship issues. People with this condition usually use non facial information to recognize people such as hair, clothing, and voice. Prosopagnosia results from problems in the face recognition network in the brain. Since there are many connections between areas that contribute to facial processing, there are many ways for the network to malfunction and cause prosopagnosia.
References:
https://www.faceblind.org/research/
I can't begin to imagine how it feels to live my life and not able to recognize faces. It would devastate me that I wouldn't be able to recognize my son, family and friends. It's almost like that movie 50 First Dates. Though she had short term memory loss, she couldn't recognize Adam Sandler from one day to the next. I genuinely commend Terry Sweeney. Prosopagnosia is life altering but she still has a bright outlook on life. Watching her try to pick out her mother with her clothes covered was hard for me to watch. I saw her face and it was as if she truly wanted to recognize but simply couldn't.
ReplyDeleteHi Hanna,
ReplyDeleteThis kind of a disorder is a really scary thing, people that deal with it and power through really deserve a lot of credit for their resilience.