Faces
quiz and gallery |  | Nerina
Parr has face blindness, but how good are your facial recognition skills? | |
Face blindnessFace
blindness - the inability to recognise faces - is a medical condition affecting
up to 2% of the population or one in 50 people. Prosopagnosia - to give
it its full name - has only been recognised as a medical condition in the past
15 years. Those who have it do not register faces - some just see faces
as a blur whilst others may see facial features such as eyes/nose/mouth, but they
don't mean anything to them. Linda Robson explores the effects of living
with this condition for Inside Out. Spotting a faceFace blindness
can cause huge social difficulties as prosopagnosics can't recall a face from
one meeting to the next, even if it's someone they've known all their life. They
can be perceived as being rude or socially inept if they ignore someone they know
if they meet them unexpectedly.  | | Recognise
this famous Eastender and Cockney star? |
Normal activities
such as watching a film or soap opera or the news are impossible as famous faces
mean nothing to them. Linda meets Nerina Parr, a social worker and trainer
who has had the condition all her life, but only recently had it diagnosed by
Dr Brad Duchaine at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College
London. Nerina went to see Dr Duchaine after her best friend Jim Apted
read an article on face blindness and became convinced that Nerrina had the condition.
She has known Jim for over 30 years and he had always found it puzzling
that she would not register the faces of people she knew well or saw every day.
Testing times Much of the research into face blindness is being
carried out at University College, and also at Harvard in the U.S. At University
College Dr Duchaine, whose work is funded by the ESRC (Economic & Social Research
Council), has developed a number of tests which enable him to diagnose the condition
and its level of seriousness in sufferers.  | | Mistaken
identity - Nerrina mistook her mate Jim for John McEnroe |
We
see Nerina taking some of these tests - one of them involves looking at photographs
of well-known faces and also close relatives and friends. She is scored
on the number of faces she recognises - inevitably very few. As well as
not recognising Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and Victoria Beckham, she mistakes
a photo of her best friend Jim for John McEnroe. She doesn't register another
one of Linda Robson, even though Linda is sitting with her when she takes the
test. Another test involves matching faces in order of similarity - some
prosopagnosics find it easier to 'process' faces if they see them upside down,
and we see that Nerina achieves a similar score with upright and inverted faces.
Face
blindness | Prosopagnosia -
an impairment in the recognition of faces. It can be accompanied
by other types of recognition impairments (place recognition, car recognition,
facial expression of emotion, etc).
Prosopagnosics may
have problems recognising family members, close friends, and even themselves. Reports
of prosopagnosia go back to antiquity. The Bodamer report (1947) was a landmark
study in describing the symptoms. Prosopagnosia is a mixture
of the Greek word for face (prosopon) and the medical term for recognition impairment
(agnosia). Symptoms include: *
Impaired recognition of people even close friends and family. *
Greater reliance on non-facial information such as clothing, hair, posture, voice,
and other information. * Problems following the plot of
television shows and movies, because they cannot keep track of the identity of
the characters. Causes - most documented cases of
prosopagnosia have resulted from brain damage suffered from head trauma, stroke,
and degenerative diseases. Source: Face
Blind |
Processing informationFace blindness
is caused by a section of the brain either being damaged, or in many cases never
developing enough to enable someone to see and process faces in the way most people
do. It can be hereditary - it is in Nerrina's case as her mother also has
the condition. At present there is no cure for the condition, although Dr
Duchaine hopes that one will be developed with increasing research. At
the moment, those who are diagnosed are taught coping mechanisms, such as avoiding
situations where they have to try to find someone in a crowd, and always getting
people to identify themselves. Nerina manages by remembering voices and
hair-styles, and always arriving early for appointments and making specific arrangements
about where to meet people. When she gives lectures to students, she tries
to get them to sit in the same place. She avoids crowds and situations
where people are in uniform. Nerina has a positive outlook on her condition. She
found being diagnosed a great relief as she had always known something was wrong
with her recognition of people, but didn't know what the problem was and was anxious
that people found her rude or stupid.
Diagnosing face blindnessDr
Duchaine says diagnosis is a huge comfort to most people as they may have previously
been misdiagnosed as having autism or asperger's syndrome. Nerina has a
host of amusing anecdotes about the problems her condition has caused her over
the years: including going to a friend's 40th party where everyone was in fancy
dress. Although most of the guests were good friends, she had no idea who
any of them were! In some cases, people with prosopagnosia can not only
not recognise or 'process' faces, but they also can't tell facial emotions, so
are unable to tell if they're with someone who is smiling, friendly, angry or
suspicious. This can make them very vulnerable in social situations. TAKE
THE FAMOUS LONDONERS QUIZ Helping handTo find out more about
face blindness, visit the at University College London. Links relating
to this story:The 成人快手 is
not responsible for the content of external websites | 
听听Coming
Up : Inside Out - London: Monday November 6, 2006
