What they really look like
What they look like when I visualize them straight in front of me
What they look like when I look a little bit beside the visualized immage.
Would I be able recognize him or her?
YES
YES
YES
On this row I wanted a photo of someone I have not actively tried to remember.
In the photo is
Jack Kilby.
He was awarded the Nobel price in Physics year 2000. I have listened to one or two of his
lectures with great interest, but I have not actively rehearsed his features.
If I do not 'rehearse' a persons features, I usually don't remember what they look like at all.
What I do when I rehearse is that each time I see the person I am trying to remember (and know who it is),
I will silently say to myself "This is X, brother of Y" (or my new boss, or my mother in law,
or the person I talked to for an hour during lunch, or ...).
After I have done that a number
of times I will have learned to recognize them, at least when I meet him or her in a place
where I expect to meet them. If I don't 'rehearse' I will very likely fail to recognize
someone who have been working in the same corridor as me for years (even if I meet them in
that corridor).
MAYBE
I would certainly not recognize his face, and probably also not his voice. In a social situation however, it is not unlikely that I would grasp from the conversation who he is.
Once I realize that this is someone I should remember, I would try to at least memorize his clothes, and then no one would know I had not recognized him in the first place.
This is Francine, my resource manager. We sit in the same corridor in
the office so I see her almost every day, and talk to her every now and
then. She is someone I see often but who is not a close friend. When I
took this picture I had known her for a few months.
I am usually totally unable to see a real visualized face straight in front of me.
When I try to visualize her face looking a little bit beside it, I have
a fairly good image of what she looks like. (At least it's good for someone
with prosopagnosia.) This image fits my memory of what she looks
like quite well. What I lack is her emotion. I can see emotions in a face
as well as most people. I get much of the emotional information from the
area around the mouth, even though it seems to be completely impossible
for me to remember what the mouth looks like.
Note that the areas that I can not remember are the same areas that changes
most in a face, and also just the areas that non-face-blind people use
for identification.
Together with my memory of a face also always comes the memory of the
voice of that person.
USUALLY
At work I am usually looking out for workmates. I know which office she works in, and though the image I retain is vague, there is no one else in the corridor who matches it.
I also try to memorize jewlery and clothes that I can check to become sure once I suspect who it is. Her tone of voice also helps.
This is Hans, my husband
When it is someone I know really well, such as my husband, I often have a less good image
for some reason. What I have is mainly the feeling that the person invokes in me.
Whether I visualize someone straight in front of me or look beside the image does not seem
to make much of a difference for the result when it is someone I know really well.
YES
I don't need to see his face to know who it is. As most people with their loved ones, I can see a part of his neck over a shelf 50 meters away and know it is him.
Seing his face makes me even more sure, but that is probably largely because I can see in his face how well he knows me.
Of course I also knows how he usally moves and acts, so seeing that helps too.
This again is Hans, my husband
If I try, I can remember what some details of the face look like. It does not help much in
the process of recognition though.
When I try to remember someone I know well, I think I probably use other things than the face
to recognize them.
