Prosopagnosia

"You walked right past me," she said, accusingly. "I even smiled at you."

I could feel my face getting hot. When I’m stumped, I often do the worst possible thing—I fall silent. Here was a girl I had been interested in ever since I first saw her back in September. Pretty and vivacious, she embodied all the social graces that I lacked. And she had spoken to me several times in class. Now, I didn’t know what to say.

"People told me you were stuck up," she continued, "but I didn’t believe them."

I stammered out a weak kind of apology, but she wasn’t appeased. Eventually, she turned and walked away. As I watched her go down the crowded hall, I felt ashamed and worthless.

That high school experience was one I would remember, but it wasn’t a rare thing. I didn’t realize how so preoccupied I was with things going on in my head that I didn’t notice what was going on around me. Especially the people around me.

Sora Song, a writer in Time, describes a condition in which people are unable to identify faces. It’s called prosopagnosia, or face-blindness. Once thought extremely rare and caused by some kind of injury to the temporal lobe, prosopagnosia is being recognized as much more prevalent than had been thought. And it seems to have a genetic factor, as well. People suffering from this malady are sometimes unable to identify even their own face in a mirror. That’s an extreme example, however. Milder cases can be compensated for through training and practice. Picking out specific features, such as hair or glasses, or even a nose mole, helps some distinguish friend from stranger.

Now, I’m reasonably sure that I don’t suffer from that unfortunate condition, my adolescent difficulties notwithstanding. (And I certainly wasn’t alone in my mental clumsiness at that age.) But reading that magazine article today reminded me of my discomfort among groups of people, such as the senior community I live in. Oh, yes, I almost always smile and wave at people I pass on the street—even when I have no idea who they are. I’m aware that many more people know me on sight than I know enough to even remember their names when they greet me. I practice all the time, looking at certain people in a room and sorting through all the names I can remember, trying to find a match. I’m much more able to recognize a face than I am to link it to a person’s name. Don’t expect me to introduce you to someone without giving me time to run a Google search in my head. I’ve been known to introduce my wife by her predecessor’s name. (Picture that late evening’s discussion.)

Researchers have determined that our ability to recognize faces is one of our most basic skills. A baby shows a preference for her mother’s face very early in life, and quickly learns to distinguish between male and female faces. No doubt it’s a survival skill. Those who lack that ability have created a number of supportive Internet forums and Web sites.

I’ve wondered, sometimes, if the reason I’m so readily identified in our senior community is because I have a beard. Of the five hundred, more or less, residents here, I think I may be the only one. (When I lived in Ann Arbor, of course, I was not so readily recognized.) It does help my self-esteem, however, being among people of my own age and sharing the discomforts of steadily eroding memory. It’s reassuring, and sometimes almost fun, to greet someone and have her confess that she has forgotten my name.

At community gatherings, sometimes the facilitators will bring out the little name badges and felt-tip pens. It’s surprising how many people—even people I know—peer down at my badge when they think I’m not watching. It occurred to me once to write on my badge, "It’s okay—I don’t remember yours, either."

So they’ve identified a syndrome for "always forgetting a face." Is there one for "I never remember names?"

July 13, 2006

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