Did You Know!
A Brain Disorder Can Make Familiar Faces Look Like Strangers
Imagine looking directly at your spouse, child, or best friend and knowing that you should recognize the person—but being unable to identify them from their face.
This can happen with a neurological condition known as prosopagnosia, commonly called “face blindness.” People with severe forms may have difficulty recognizing relatives, longtime friends, celebrities, and sometimes even their own face in photographs or mirrors.
Interestingly, the problem isn’t necessarily poor eyesight. A person may clearly see someone’s eyes, nose, mouth, and other facial features but have difficulty processing those features together in the way the brain normally uses to identify a person.
Some people develop prosopagnosia following damage to areas of the brain involved in facial processing, such as after a stroke or traumatic brain injury. Others appear to have a developmental form without an obvious brain injury.
People with face blindness may compensate in clever ways. Instead of relying on faces, they might identify people by their voice, hairstyle, clothing, body shape, mannerisms, or the context in which they encounter them.
That can make the condition surprisingly difficult for outsiders to notice.
