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For a while, I've had a growing suspicion that I'm less able to recognise faces than most people. My worst moment came a few years ago when I'd met so many people for a day on various courses that I decided that I'd just admit to the next unfamiliar person who started chatting to me that I couldn't remember where I knew them from. And the next person just happened to be one of my best friends. (More made up than usual and in a place where I wasn't expecting to see her, but still very embarrassing, though thankfully she doesn't seem to hold it against me.)
Nor was I ever much into recognising actors. I'd get interested in certain characters, sure, but I couldn't look at a movie and think 'oh, that's so-and-so'. I'm more able to make those links now, though I think that's largely down to IMDB making me more aware of who's been in what. And reading books I got a strong sense of the essence of a character, and even how they might look in outline, but never their facial features.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyofastolat raised an interesting question a while back about whether people who are good at recognising faces are more likely to think about what movie actors would play which characters. I also wonder whether people who don't have a strong sense of faces more readily adapt to whatever movie version is placed in front of them, unless it's way out of line. I can't remember how I visualised most HP characters before movie-corruption set in. Movie!Teenage!Hermione doesn't work for me (the mismatch wasn't so bad when she was younger) and Umbridge and Slughorn work on their own terms but I still remember a different image. But Movie!McGonagall is firmly embedded in my mind now, and most names conjure up movie images on first thought even for characters like Neville who didn't match my image of them at all.
So, I was very interested to hear the Radio 4 programme on face blindness and its opposite. Those of you in the UK can still catch it here for the next 6 days. Raised some interesting questions on how we assume we perceive each other - and some worrying ones about the usefulness of photoID and the validity of CCTV in jury evidence. And also provided a link to some Face Recognition Tests.
Doing the tests was a weird experience - looking at faces without hair made me look at other features and shapes more than I normally do. Perhaps if I practice looking like that (and finally start learning to draw) I'll get better. But when shown three faces and asked which they'd shown me before, my hasty litany of heavy eyebrows/pointed chin/round face/etc did me no good whatsoever, and I ended up having to go on instinct - which one looked familiar? And my instinct seemed to go on which face was more appealing (not entirely superficial, as where I had a feeling of recognition I did feel more affinity with that face).
On that test I got 67% right - they say the average is 80%, and if you get below 65% you may have face recognition difficulties. There was another test, looking at recognition of famous people - I was rather gobsmacked to get the first one right so evidently that instinct isn't completely useless - but in the end I only managed 48% of the people with whom I felt I ought to be familiar. The norm is 85%; below 50% they reckon indicates a problem.
So, significantly bad, but not absolutely dire, which seems fair enough from my experience. Sometimes getting older feels like a process of discovering more and more things I can't do.
And if I've met you once or twice before, and I meet you again and don't recognise you, don't take offence, okay?
Nor was I ever much into recognising actors. I'd get interested in certain characters, sure, but I couldn't look at a movie and think 'oh, that's so-and-so'. I'm more able to make those links now, though I think that's largely down to IMDB making me more aware of who's been in what. And reading books I got a strong sense of the essence of a character, and even how they might look in outline, but never their facial features.
ladyofastolat raised an interesting question a while back about whether people who are good at recognising faces are more likely to think about what movie actors would play which characters. I also wonder whether people who don't have a strong sense of faces more readily adapt to whatever movie version is placed in front of them, unless it's way out of line. I can't remember how I visualised most HP characters before movie-corruption set in. Movie!Teenage!Hermione doesn't work for me (the mismatch wasn't so bad when she was younger) and Umbridge and Slughorn work on their own terms but I still remember a different image. But Movie!McGonagall is firmly embedded in my mind now, and most names conjure up movie images on first thought even for characters like Neville who didn't match my image of them at all.So, I was very interested to hear the Radio 4 programme on face blindness and its opposite. Those of you in the UK can still catch it here for the next 6 days. Raised some interesting questions on how we assume we perceive each other - and some worrying ones about the usefulness of photoID and the validity of CCTV in jury evidence. And also provided a link to some Face Recognition Tests.
Doing the tests was a weird experience - looking at faces without hair made me look at other features and shapes more than I normally do. Perhaps if I practice looking like that (and finally start learning to draw) I'll get better. But when shown three faces and asked which they'd shown me before, my hasty litany of heavy eyebrows/pointed chin/round face/etc did me no good whatsoever, and I ended up having to go on instinct - which one looked familiar? And my instinct seemed to go on which face was more appealing (not entirely superficial, as where I had a feeling of recognition I did feel more affinity with that face).
On that test I got 67% right - they say the average is 80%, and if you get below 65% you may have face recognition difficulties. There was another test, looking at recognition of famous people - I was rather gobsmacked to get the first one right so evidently that instinct isn't completely useless - but in the end I only managed 48% of the people with whom I felt I ought to be familiar. The norm is 85%; below 50% they reckon indicates a problem.
So, significantly bad, but not absolutely dire, which seems fair enough from my experience. Sometimes getting older feels like a process of discovering more and more things I can't do.
And if I've met you once or twice before, and I meet you again and don't recognise you, don't take offence, okay?
