1
00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:06,119
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks

2
00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:14,720
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

3
00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:17,360
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

4
00:00:17,480 --> 00:00:20,800
Speaker 1: not too long ago, Robert and I did an episode

5
00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:26,479
Speaker 1: about prosopagnosia, or the condition often known as face blindness. Now,

6
00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:29,040
Speaker 1: we discussed a little bit in the episode how that

7
00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:31,360
Speaker 1: is kind of a misnomer because it's not so much

8
00:00:31,440 --> 00:00:37,200
Speaker 1: blindness but an inability to recognize and and recall familiarity

9
00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:40,720
Speaker 1: with faces in the same way that that most people can,

10
00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:43,400
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, Like, this was something that was kind

11
00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:45,879
Speaker 1: of a challenge and coming up with landing page art

12
00:00:45,920 --> 00:00:48,120
Speaker 1: for that episode because they didn't want to go with

13
00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:52,360
Speaker 1: a Hannibal like face of like faceless specter kind of

14
00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:55,400
Speaker 1: an image. What I ended up doing is picking one

15
00:00:55,440 --> 00:00:58,160
Speaker 1: where you had an individual with a pixelized face, because

16
00:00:58,160 --> 00:01:01,480
Speaker 1: I felt like that granted with faceblinness or not seeing

17
00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:04,880
Speaker 1: a pixelized face, but they it is more in line

18
00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:10,320
Speaker 1: with a distortion of sensory data and inability to to

19
00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:16,640
Speaker 1: correctly identify somebody based on this particular area of sensory information. Yeah,

20
00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:19,440
Speaker 1: it implies scrambling of matching. Yeah, So this was a

21
00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:22,200
Speaker 1: really interesting topic to me, and I was glad we

22
00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:23,920
Speaker 1: did an episode on it. But I knew in the

23
00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:27,039
Speaker 1: episode since one of the figures we came across was

24
00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:30,520
Speaker 1: that multiple studies have done surveys and found that somewhere

25
00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:34,960
Speaker 1: around maybe between one and three percent, usually estimated around

26
00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:39,120
Speaker 1: two percent of the general population has some level of

27
00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:44,160
Speaker 1: developmental prosopagnosia. So one in fifty people you can expect

28
00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:48,000
Speaker 1: are going to have some level of trouble recognizing faces

29
00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:51,440
Speaker 1: within the normal range of human ability. And what this

30
00:01:51,520 --> 00:01:53,720
Speaker 1: meant is, well, we've got to have tons of listeners

31
00:01:53,800 --> 00:01:56,720
Speaker 1: who have some form of face blindness. So we asked

32
00:01:56,760 --> 00:01:59,680
Speaker 1: in the episode if anybody wanted to share their experience

33
00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:02,360
Speaker 1: as well. We heard from a lot of you. Yeah, indeed,

34
00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:03,960
Speaker 1: And like you said, we knew we were going to

35
00:02:04,040 --> 00:02:06,680
Speaker 1: get sense some listener feedback here, but I guess I

36
00:02:06,720 --> 00:02:09,400
Speaker 1: wasn't really prepared for just how many, because essentially the

37
00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:12,000
Speaker 1: the episode I think aired on a Thursday, and so

38
00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,920
Speaker 1: the entire weekend was just but mostly emails from listeners

39
00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:18,440
Speaker 1: who have some degree of face blindness. Oh, I'd say

40
00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:20,880
Speaker 1: by sometime on Friday, I think we'd heard from at

41
00:02:20,919 --> 00:02:23,920
Speaker 1: least a dozen people, but they just kept coming in.

42
00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:26,520
Speaker 1: So we we do have to say that we're not

43
00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:28,360
Speaker 1: going to be able to get to all of the

44
00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:31,680
Speaker 1: messages we got from everyone who got into contact with

45
00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:35,560
Speaker 1: us about face blindness or related topics. Some people reported, uh,

46
00:02:35,600 --> 00:02:37,880
Speaker 1: you know, similar related ideas that I think would also

47
00:02:37,919 --> 00:02:40,040
Speaker 1: be fun to discuss. But today we wanted to read

48
00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:43,640
Speaker 1: some of these messages and talk about what what ideas

49
00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:46,000
Speaker 1: get brought up in them, and also relate back to

50
00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:48,680
Speaker 1: some other some other follow up research. Yeah, and since

51
00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:51,600
Speaker 1: all the emails today are about face blindness, I took

52
00:02:51,639 --> 00:02:55,160
Speaker 1: the liberty of of taking out our mail bot, Carnie's

53
00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:58,760
Speaker 1: facial recognition software. So now he is going to identify

54
00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:03,959
Speaker 1: Joe and me purely by by smell and by touch.

55
00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:08,120
Speaker 1: Which one of us is the rough one? I'm going

56
00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:10,000
Speaker 1: to leave that to Carney. Carney is going to develop

57
00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:14,320
Speaker 1: his own a smell and touch profile for each of us.

58
00:03:14,520 --> 00:03:16,680
Speaker 1: This this may be disgusting, t M. I I think

59
00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:20,680
Speaker 1: I'm just getting over my my gross like alligator winter hands.

60
00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:25,160
Speaker 1: I can't like really dried out in my knuckles. Yeah, well,

61
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:28,200
Speaker 1: only I had cut myself shaving this morning, which sometimes

62
00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:30,760
Speaker 1: I do I sometimes they come into the podcast studio

63
00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:34,239
Speaker 1: and I'm still bleeding um from the neck. That would

64
00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:36,640
Speaker 1: have actually helped Carney out quite a bit, I think. Well,

65
00:03:36,960 --> 00:03:39,880
Speaker 1: hopefully at least Carney can hand messages to one or

66
00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:42,000
Speaker 1: the other of us in either way they'll get read

67
00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:45,320
Speaker 1: right and and he may since none of it, neither

68
00:03:45,320 --> 00:03:48,280
Speaker 1: of us is bleeding, he might make an incision on

69
00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:49,920
Speaker 1: one of us, just to keep track, So just be

70
00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:53,720
Speaker 1: prepared for that. Okay. Our first message is from our listener, Lindsay,

71
00:03:53,920 --> 00:03:57,520
Speaker 1: who writes in and says, hello, Robert and Joe. I

72
00:03:57,560 --> 00:04:00,120
Speaker 1: just finished listening to your episode about face blindness. I

73
00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:02,960
Speaker 1: could relate a lot to the bits about Oliver Sacks.

74
00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:05,600
Speaker 1: Much of what he said was familiar, even if I

75
00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:09,240
Speaker 1: hadn't realized it before hearing your show. I've often wondered

76
00:04:09,240 --> 00:04:12,160
Speaker 1: if I have face blindness, but then usually dismiss myself

77
00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:15,120
Speaker 1: as a hypochondriac and tell myself it's because I'm not

78
00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:18,800
Speaker 1: paying enough attention to my surroundings that I can't recognize

79
00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:22,520
Speaker 1: people or place as well. Professionally, I'm an artist, so

80
00:04:22,560 --> 00:04:24,960
Speaker 1: you just assume about yourself that you must be good

81
00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:28,080
Speaker 1: at observation, right, So why can't you remember if you've

82
00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:31,240
Speaker 1: met someone before. It's a confusing situation to be in.

83
00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:33,800
Speaker 1: I pay a lot of attention to the slope of

84
00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:38,320
Speaker 1: people's noses, clothing styles, or their mannerisms to help me

85
00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:42,960
Speaker 1: rely on recognition. Auditory cues and context are also very useful.

86
00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:46,280
Speaker 1: The problem is much less pronounced with people I see frequently,

87
00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:50,000
Speaker 1: whereas a passing acquaintance or celebrity is much harder. It's

88
00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:53,480
Speaker 1: also difficult to visualize people's faces as a whole in

89
00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:57,800
Speaker 1: my mind. Sometimes I can zero in on features about

90
00:04:57,880 --> 00:05:01,120
Speaker 1: them or expressions, but my mental image of their face

91
00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:04,160
Speaker 1: is often somewhat blurry. It's odd because I have a

92
00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:08,200
Speaker 1: very good memory for other things. I'm also directionally challenged.

93
00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:11,320
Speaker 1: If I park my car to walk to a specific restaurant,

94
00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:13,520
Speaker 1: I often forget which way I need to walk to

95
00:05:13,560 --> 00:05:16,080
Speaker 1: get there, and so I look for queues like how

96
00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:18,200
Speaker 1: close I am to the end of the street and

97
00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:20,800
Speaker 1: how far I remember the restaurant being from the end

98
00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:23,160
Speaker 1: of the street, or I'll hope to see a distinctive

99
00:05:23,160 --> 00:05:25,560
Speaker 1: tree or building I know is across from the place

100
00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:29,120
Speaker 1: I'm going to. The issue seems exacerbated if the streets

101
00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:32,280
Speaker 1: look very similar. If they're all flat and straight at

102
00:05:32,400 --> 00:05:36,040
Speaker 1: right angles to one another, it's hopeless. I frequently forget

103
00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:38,159
Speaker 1: where I park in parking lots and have learned to

104
00:05:38,240 --> 00:05:41,240
Speaker 1: notice the angle I need to walk to the front

105
00:05:41,279 --> 00:05:43,560
Speaker 1: door of a store to get back to my car,

106
00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:45,760
Speaker 1: a sign that is in line with the row I

107
00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:48,839
Speaker 1: parked in, or I'll park in a similar location every

108
00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:52,600
Speaker 1: time I visit it. I've never been diagnosed with prosopagnosia,

109
00:05:52,680 --> 00:05:54,760
Speaker 1: so take all this with a grain of salt. I

110
00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:58,080
Speaker 1: wonder what percentage of people actually get diagnosed or just

111
00:05:58,160 --> 00:06:01,440
Speaker 1: explain away the whole situation I do with theories of

112
00:06:01,480 --> 00:06:04,040
Speaker 1: early memory loss or a short span of attention for

113
00:06:04,120 --> 00:06:08,479
Speaker 1: my surroundings brought on by the age of instant gratification. Regardless,

114
00:06:08,520 --> 00:06:12,080
Speaker 1: I hope this was insightful best. Lindsay, that was very incifle.

115
00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:16,400
Speaker 1: I especially appreciate, uh finding out that that that Lindsay

116
00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:18,960
Speaker 1: is an artist. Yeah, and uh, and about how there's

117
00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:23,120
Speaker 1: this sort of expectation that they would have perfect observational skills. Now,

118
00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:26,880
Speaker 1: we actually heard from more than one person who reported

119
00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:30,000
Speaker 1: having some degree of face blindness and reported being a

120
00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:32,600
Speaker 1: professional artist. I think we heard from I think at

121
00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:35,479
Speaker 1: least three people like this. Now, we do, I think,

122
00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:38,279
Speaker 1: tend to have a lot of artists out in the audience.

123
00:06:38,320 --> 00:06:41,360
Speaker 1: We hear from them often. Um, but yeah, I think

124
00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:44,159
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. I was reading a totally different

125
00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:47,080
Speaker 1: story that was published and wired back in two thousand

126
00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:50,919
Speaker 1: six by a writer named Joshua Davis about prosopagnosia, and

127
00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:52,960
Speaker 1: he profiled a bunch of people and one of the

128
00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:57,600
Speaker 1: people he discussed with prosopagnosia was this guy named Tom

129
00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:00,320
Speaker 1: in the story. And one interesting feature of mom was

130
00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:03,080
Speaker 1: that Tom was an artist and he loved doing sketches

131
00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:05,320
Speaker 1: of people of his friends and family. But when he

132
00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:08,800
Speaker 1: drew people, they didn't have faces. And he didn't think

133
00:07:08,839 --> 00:07:12,080
Speaker 1: this was weird because he thought, you know, I'm identifying

134
00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:14,360
Speaker 1: the people in the pictures, and they're identified by their

135
00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:17,600
Speaker 1: posture and things like that, why do they need faces?

136
00:07:17,880 --> 00:07:20,120
Speaker 1: Another person might look at those drawings and think, oh,

137
00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:22,160
Speaker 1: that's kind of creepy. That's like, you know, drawing people

138
00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:24,560
Speaker 1: without faces, like something out of the ring or something.

139
00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:27,360
Speaker 1: But like, uh, but no, I mean it made sense

140
00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:29,160
Speaker 1: to him, and you can see why it would if

141
00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:34,640
Speaker 1: you are cataloging people by visual cues other than the

142
00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:38,000
Speaker 1: minute differences in the arrangement of eyes and nose and

143
00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:41,040
Speaker 1: mouth and stuff that comes so naturally to most people,

144
00:07:41,280 --> 00:07:43,240
Speaker 1: you know it. I have to think of it in

145
00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:48,120
Speaker 1: terms of of writing too, Like one might easily jump

146
00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:51,920
Speaker 1: through the conclusion, oh, well, you uh you write fiction. Uh,

147
00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:55,000
Speaker 1: you must have just a great grasp of of human

148
00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:58,400
Speaker 1: psychology and character, or or you must have just you know,

149
00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:02,240
Speaker 1: uh fu too graphic memory of the world around you

150
00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:05,600
Speaker 1: so that you can uh describe it, um, you know,

151
00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:09,000
Speaker 1: on the page. But you know, obviously there are a

152
00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:11,800
Speaker 1: number of different You look at any any writer and

153
00:08:11,840 --> 00:08:13,440
Speaker 1: compare them to another writer, and they're going to have

154
00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:17,600
Speaker 1: a different degrees of focus in detail on say a

155
00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:22,400
Speaker 1: physical setting, or even on you know, character and internal dialogue.

156
00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:26,480
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say that some writers may

157
00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:30,320
Speaker 1: write about people because they don't have some sort of

158
00:08:30,360 --> 00:08:34,520
Speaker 1: spectacular insight into how they work, and maybe they're mystified

159
00:08:34,559 --> 00:08:37,360
Speaker 1: by people, and therefore like this is their way of

160
00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:41,240
Speaker 1: trying to really dissect it and figure out what's going on. Well,

161
00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:43,040
Speaker 1: to go back to a similar episode we've done in

162
00:08:43,080 --> 00:08:45,400
Speaker 1: the past, when we did an episode on a phantasia

163
00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:48,760
Speaker 1: the Blindness of the Mind's Eye, The lack of inner imagery.

164
00:08:49,840 --> 00:08:53,400
Speaker 1: We heard from lots of listeners who they said, I

165
00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:55,559
Speaker 1: have a fantasia and here's what it's like. And we

166
00:08:55,679 --> 00:08:58,400
Speaker 1: heard from more than one writer of fiction who who

167
00:08:58,520 --> 00:09:01,360
Speaker 1: lacked uh inner maagory. And you might think, like, how

168
00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:03,240
Speaker 1: can you write a story if you can't picture a

169
00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:05,720
Speaker 1: scene in your head? But they did, And in fact,

170
00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:09,280
Speaker 1: you might imagine how some people who don't picture scenes

171
00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:13,040
Speaker 1: in their head could have other ways of organizing information

172
00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:15,840
Speaker 1: in their brains that actually could lend themselves very well

173
00:09:15,880 --> 00:09:18,640
Speaker 1: to crafting narration. Yeah, yeah, I could see where it

174
00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:20,920
Speaker 1: would be a strength in some cases, because I feel

175
00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:23,880
Speaker 1: like in my own writing, oftentimes I'll have to such

176
00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:27,960
Speaker 1: a crystal clear image in my head of what a scene,

177
00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:31,000
Speaker 1: should you know, look like in the mind's eye, and

178
00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:36,120
Speaker 1: I'm chasing that and it's an exercise of chasing that

179
00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:40,280
Speaker 1: mental image and making the paper replicated. And if I

180
00:09:40,320 --> 00:09:43,040
Speaker 1: were not chasing that specific image, then then it would

181
00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:46,360
Speaker 1: be a different exercise, but perhaps one that is more

182
00:09:46,400 --> 00:09:50,120
Speaker 1: in line with reaching the reader. Yeah. If you start

183
00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:51,960
Speaker 1: with the visual image of a scene and then you

184
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,960
Speaker 1: try to put that visual image into writing for the reader,

185
00:09:55,320 --> 00:09:58,480
Speaker 1: your writing is actually a second generation copy of what

186
00:09:58,559 --> 00:10:00,720
Speaker 1: you've imagined. It's like a vh AS copy of a

187
00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:03,320
Speaker 1: copy or not a copy of a copy of the original.

188
00:10:03,679 --> 00:10:07,000
Speaker 1: But the person who has a fantasiation and imagines a

189
00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:10,480
Speaker 1: scene in words to begin with, the reader is actually

190
00:10:10,480 --> 00:10:14,320
Speaker 1: getting the original copy of the imagination. Yeah, it really

191
00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:16,680
Speaker 1: turns everything on its head. Yeah. No. One more thing

192
00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:18,840
Speaker 1: I want to mention before we move on to the

193
00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:22,640
Speaker 1: next email is that, obviously Lindsay is expressing what a

194
00:10:22,720 --> 00:10:26,080
Speaker 1: lot of people express, which is uncertainty. Right, do I

195
00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:29,240
Speaker 1: meet the criteria for having face blindness? And do do

196
00:10:29,280 --> 00:10:31,600
Speaker 1: I really have face blindness? Or am I just sort

197
00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:34,280
Speaker 1: of at the lower end of the normal spectrum for

198
00:10:34,320 --> 00:10:39,440
Speaker 1: recognizing faces. Obviously, we're not psychiatrists or neurologists. We can't

199
00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:43,320
Speaker 1: diagnose you for you, but there are tests that you

200
00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:45,800
Speaker 1: can just take on the internet that give you some

201
00:10:45,880 --> 00:10:48,840
Speaker 1: indication of whether you might have a clinical case of

202
00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:52,720
Speaker 1: face blindness now or Again. Absolutely not suggesting that you

203
00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:55,000
Speaker 1: come to a conclusion about this just based on a

204
00:10:55,080 --> 00:10:57,920
Speaker 1: test on the internet. You should talk to a medical professional.

205
00:10:57,960 --> 00:11:00,880
Speaker 1: You should see a psychiatrist or neurologist. But I think

206
00:11:00,920 --> 00:11:03,000
Speaker 1: these tests can at least give you a better starting

207
00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:06,960
Speaker 1: place for considering whether it's worth bringing up. One example

208
00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:12,760
Speaker 1: would be the twenty item Prosopagnosia Index, which is by Shaw, Gall, Sodan, Bird,

209
00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:15,360
Speaker 1: and Cook. It was published on a domain called Trouble

210
00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:18,200
Speaker 1: with Faces dot org, and you can look this up

211
00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:21,720
Speaker 1: if you want, the twenty item Prosopagnosia Index, and it

212
00:11:21,720 --> 00:11:25,319
Speaker 1: includes questions like the following. Do you find it noticeably

213
00:11:25,480 --> 00:11:29,840
Speaker 1: easier to recognize people who have distinctive facial features? This

214
00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:32,640
Speaker 1: came up in the last episode, you know, the distinctive

215
00:11:32,720 --> 00:11:36,400
Speaker 1: mustache or the mole or something like that. Do you

216
00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:40,440
Speaker 1: often mistake people you've met for strangers when people change

217
00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:44,320
Speaker 1: their hairstyle or wear hats. Do you have problems recognizing

218
00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:49,760
Speaker 1: them without hearing people's voices? Do you struggle to recognize them?

219
00:11:49,840 --> 00:11:53,440
Speaker 1: Do you have anxiety about face recognition that has led

220
00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:57,400
Speaker 1: you to avoid certain social or professional situations? Here's a

221
00:11:57,480 --> 00:11:59,719
Speaker 1: key one we've seen reported a lot. Do you ever

222
00:11:59,760 --> 00:12:05,079
Speaker 1: find it hard to follow movies because of difficulties recognizing characters?

223
00:12:05,800 --> 00:12:08,640
Speaker 1: Is it hard to recognize familiar people when you meet

224
00:12:08,679 --> 00:12:11,680
Speaker 1: them out of context? For example, meeting a work colleague

225
00:12:11,679 --> 00:12:15,000
Speaker 1: while shopping and then another really interesting one, is it

226
00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:19,000
Speaker 1: sometimes hard to recognize yourself in a photograph? Yeah, I

227
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:21,559
Speaker 1: think those are. That's a great starting place for some

228
00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:26,520
Speaker 1: degree of self diagnosis, um be, because if you're like me,

229
00:12:26,800 --> 00:12:28,560
Speaker 1: you probably match up with at least one or two

230
00:12:28,600 --> 00:12:30,079
Speaker 1: of those things. You can say, oh yeah, when I

231
00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:32,800
Speaker 1: encounter people out of context, if I don't know them

232
00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:35,240
Speaker 1: very well and they just completely blank on who they are,

233
00:12:35,920 --> 00:12:39,840
Speaker 1: I wonder to what extent you can have maybe not

234
00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:43,760
Speaker 1: a clinical case of face blindness, but but have face

235
00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:49,800
Speaker 1: recognition expertise significantly increase or decrease throughout life. Because I

236
00:12:49,840 --> 00:12:52,880
Speaker 1: feel like I can look at items on this list

237
00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,480
Speaker 1: and think these used to be much more true of

238
00:12:56,520 --> 00:12:59,840
Speaker 1: me than they are today. I remember when I was younger,

239
00:13:00,280 --> 00:13:02,440
Speaker 1: like when I was a kid, I would sometimes watch

240
00:13:02,520 --> 00:13:05,760
Speaker 1: movies and have a lot of trouble following who the

241
00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:08,560
Speaker 1: characters were. I'd get people mixed up, not be able

242
00:13:08,600 --> 00:13:12,080
Speaker 1: to recognize people from one scene to another. And for

243
00:13:12,120 --> 00:13:15,280
Speaker 1: some reason, as I got older, that stopped being a problem.

244
00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:17,439
Speaker 1: But I wonder, I wonder how that would have Do

245
00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:20,080
Speaker 1: you think that might have occurred just through obsession? Through

246
00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:23,439
Speaker 1: because I have session with movies? Yeah, Because I feel

247
00:13:23,440 --> 00:13:26,360
Speaker 1: like like like like you and I have this in

248
00:13:26,400 --> 00:13:31,120
Speaker 1: common where we we we probably devote far too much

249
00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:36,560
Speaker 1: a space in our minds to cataloging character actors in

250
00:13:36,559 --> 00:13:40,440
Speaker 1: in uh in B movies. Um, but you know that's

251
00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:44,119
Speaker 1: not something that just occurred overnight. Like that is the

252
00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:47,720
Speaker 1: accumulation of years upon years of you know, wasting our

253
00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:52,000
Speaker 1: time on intermittent movie database and seeing these films. Yeah,

254
00:13:52,040 --> 00:13:53,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like it's the case even for

255
00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:57,160
Speaker 1: unfamiliar actors. But I don't know that is a good question.

256
00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:00,600
Speaker 1: I again, I'm I'm not suggesting that any point I

257
00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:05,199
Speaker 1: had anything like a diagnosable case of face blindness, because

258
00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:07,680
Speaker 1: a lot of these other criteria don't ring true to

259
00:14:07,720 --> 00:14:09,760
Speaker 1: me at all. But I remember it being the case

260
00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:12,120
Speaker 1: in movies in the past for me, and not the

261
00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:15,120
Speaker 1: case anymore. So. One takeaway from that is, even though

262
00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:18,839
Speaker 1: you shouldn't diagnose yourself on an internet test alone without

263
00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:22,080
Speaker 1: seeing a medical professional, you definitely shouldn't diagnose yourself just

264
00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:25,360
Speaker 1: based on the answer to one question. All right, here's

265
00:14:25,360 --> 00:14:29,080
Speaker 1: one for us. This comes to us from Theodore. Hey, guys,

266
00:14:29,280 --> 00:14:31,960
Speaker 1: I saw today's episode and knew it was gonna be awesome.

267
00:14:32,240 --> 00:14:34,640
Speaker 1: I have a mild sort of face blindness that works

268
00:14:34,640 --> 00:14:37,320
Speaker 1: in some weird ways. I was actually surprised to you

269
00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:40,960
Speaker 1: guys didn't reference your episode on the Theater of the Mind.

270
00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:45,000
Speaker 1: That would be the A Fantasia episode um more, because

271
00:14:45,040 --> 00:14:47,240
Speaker 1: I have always felt my own version of face blindness

272
00:14:47,320 --> 00:14:50,160
Speaker 1: is very similar to that. When I see people I know,

273
00:14:50,400 --> 00:14:53,320
Speaker 1: I actually do not struggle to recognize them too much,

274
00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:57,560
Speaker 1: but my ability to picture people's faces is what is impaired. Strangely,

275
00:14:57,800 --> 00:15:00,360
Speaker 1: I have also noticed that I have an inverse relaationship

276
00:15:00,400 --> 00:15:02,680
Speaker 1: between how well I know someone and how well I

277
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:05,880
Speaker 1: can picture their face. For example, Robert, I have seen

278
00:15:05,920 --> 00:15:09,920
Speaker 1: you in some YouTube videos and online. Your face I

279
00:15:09,920 --> 00:15:12,920
Speaker 1: can pull up fairly easily. However, my mother, who I

280
00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:15,600
Speaker 1: have known my whole life, I really struggle to picture

281
00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:18,960
Speaker 1: her face. That's interesting. I work as a parker coach

282
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:22,240
Speaker 1: and personal trainer in my career. The face blindness has

283
00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:25,040
Speaker 1: I think actually helped me. Since I do not naturally

284
00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:27,680
Speaker 1: use facial clues as much, I have developed a natural

285
00:15:27,680 --> 00:15:31,160
Speaker 1: affinity to pick up on people's body movements. This makes

286
00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:34,760
Speaker 1: recognizing various movement patterns very easy. I can identify a

287
00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:38,720
Speaker 1: person by their collapsed arch long before their nose shape.

288
00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:42,040
Speaker 1: I have never experienced the problems of spatial awareness, you

289
00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:44,640
Speaker 1: guys that also mentioned I have always had a pretty

290
00:15:44,640 --> 00:15:47,800
Speaker 1: good sense of direction. Training Parker for seven years has

291
00:15:47,800 --> 00:15:50,320
Speaker 1: only enhanced that I can look at a space for

292
00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:53,320
Speaker 1: a few minutes and later recall it in exacting detail.

293
00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:56,520
Speaker 1: Thanks for another great episode THEO. Now, as we talked

294
00:15:56,520 --> 00:16:01,160
Speaker 1: about originally, these associated condition such as like having a

295
00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:06,400
Speaker 1: difficulty with identifying geographical locations or spatial topography, that's not

296
00:16:06,560 --> 00:16:09,320
Speaker 1: always associated with face blindness, but it does seem to

297
00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:13,720
Speaker 1: be somewhat covariant, you know. And I also can't help

298
00:16:13,720 --> 00:16:16,920
Speaker 1: but wonder about the difference between saying, say, seeing my

299
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:20,880
Speaker 1: face online for seeing his mother, mother's face, like the

300
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:26,720
Speaker 1: face of one's mother or another close family member. Is like,

301
00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:29,200
Speaker 1: there's just so much more data there, so much more

302
00:16:29,280 --> 00:16:33,640
Speaker 1: situational data, uh changing data over time. Is that individual

303
00:16:33,720 --> 00:16:37,040
Speaker 1: ages and goes through various uh you know styles even

304
00:16:37,800 --> 00:16:41,640
Speaker 1: but for like the host of a podcast, like, how

305
00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:44,160
Speaker 1: much visual data is there? Really? And it's there and

306
00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:47,640
Speaker 1: it's limited. It's not personal data. It's what a few

307
00:16:47,760 --> 00:16:51,680
Speaker 1: varying headshots over the course of a decade, a few

308
00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:54,840
Speaker 1: videos you've caught here and there with very similar lighting.

309
00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:59,000
Speaker 1: So it doesn't sound that surprising to me. I mean,

310
00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:02,680
Speaker 1: I must say I'm surprised by it is really interesting. Um,

311
00:17:04,119 --> 00:17:06,680
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying, though, Like you might have

312
00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:09,720
Speaker 1: an easier time picturing something that there is a more

313
00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:15,000
Speaker 1: uniquely identifiable source for if you've just seen it once,

314
00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:17,840
Speaker 1: then something that you've got a lot of data you're

315
00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:19,800
Speaker 1: trying to average. Though that sounds like that would not

316
00:17:19,880 --> 00:17:23,240
Speaker 1: fall under like normal face processing. That does sound unusual

317
00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:25,919
Speaker 1: to me. But I wonder if there is a distinctive

318
00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:29,840
Speaker 1: difference between essentially remembering a photo of a person and

319
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:34,320
Speaker 1: remembering that person's face, you know, because because like when

320
00:17:34,359 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 1: I when I think back on say, people I've known

321
00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:40,040
Speaker 1: that that have passed on, um, you know, I can

322
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:43,800
Speaker 1: recall their face pretty clearly, But I I second guess

323
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:47,639
Speaker 1: myself more sometimes about the details, uh, as opposed to

324
00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:52,800
Speaker 1: say a picture, say a famous Hollywood actor from you know,

325
00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:56,520
Speaker 1: the ninety forties or something I can picture. I can

326
00:17:56,560 --> 00:17:59,159
Speaker 1: picture Clark Gable like that, and I really don't have

327
00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:02,200
Speaker 1: any difficult culty in bringing to mind, at least the

328
00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:05,520
Speaker 1: most prominent headshot of Clark Gable in my mind. But

329
00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:09,280
Speaker 1: would you recognize Clark Gable without a mustache? I might not,

330
00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:11,480
Speaker 1: that's the thing, But I but that, Yeah, I just

331
00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:14,159
Speaker 1: have so much there's just so much less data than

332
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:18,200
Speaker 1: I'm calling upon. I'm basically remembering probably I'm probably remembering

333
00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:21,440
Speaker 1: his IMDb or Wicked profile picture. You know. Yeah, it

334
00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:24,680
Speaker 1: does make you wonder if they're actually different sort of

335
00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:29,000
Speaker 1: subsets of categorization pathways within the brain for different classes

336
00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:33,280
Speaker 1: of faces. Do do we class famous faces any different

337
00:18:33,359 --> 00:18:37,720
Speaker 1: than we class personally familiar faces? Do those operate differently

338
00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:40,560
Speaker 1: or do we use the same architecture for both? Take

339
00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:44,600
Speaker 1: Michael Fassbinder for instance. Alright, always an interesting face to

340
00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:48,320
Speaker 1: look at, always a joy to watch him act, or

341
00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:52,280
Speaker 1: an agony, depending on the part. But he rarely looks

342
00:18:52,320 --> 00:18:53,879
Speaker 1: me in the eyes. And when he does look me

343
00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:56,600
Speaker 1: in the eye, when he does look at the camera, uh,

344
00:18:57,080 --> 00:18:59,680
Speaker 1: I know that I am looking at essentially an object.

345
00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:03,679
Speaker 1: He cannot he cannot view me back. There's no social

346
00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:06,600
Speaker 1: exchange there. Not just because he's playing a robot. Not

347
00:19:06,720 --> 00:19:08,960
Speaker 1: just because he's playing a robot and it's maybe a

348
00:19:09,040 --> 00:19:12,560
Speaker 1: pie zombie, but no, but because I mean, obviously this

349
00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:14,800
Speaker 1: is an overstatement of the obvious, but he cannot see me.

350
00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:17,239
Speaker 1: This is not I am. I am observing him as

351
00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:21,080
Speaker 1: a voyeur. This is only tangentially related to the subject.

352
00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:23,240
Speaker 1: But it does make me think of a study on

353
00:19:23,359 --> 00:19:27,480
Speaker 1: the Thatcher illusion. Uh So, Robert I included some images

354
00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:29,840
Speaker 1: here of this wonderful thing. If you never heard about

355
00:19:29,880 --> 00:19:33,280
Speaker 1: the Thatcher illusion before, you can't just listen to us

356
00:19:33,359 --> 00:19:35,720
Speaker 1: describe it. You have to, whenever you get the opportunity,

357
00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:38,720
Speaker 1: go and look up what this looks like. The Thatcher

358
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:42,159
Speaker 1: illusion is this principle first detective by Thompson in nineteen

359
00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:45,080
Speaker 1: eighty and it's defined by the authors of a studio

360
00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:48,600
Speaker 1: and I mentioned just briefly and plos one from sixteen

361
00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:52,200
Speaker 1: by Huts and Carbon, And it's defined by these authors

362
00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:56,760
Speaker 1: as the case where quote participants instantly perceive an upright

363
00:19:56,880 --> 00:20:00,879
Speaker 1: face with inverted eyes and mouth as gre task, but

364
00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:04,280
Speaker 1: fail to do so when the face is inverted. So

365
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:06,800
Speaker 1: if you take a normal face you flip the eyes

366
00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:10,840
Speaker 1: and the mouth upside down on it. It is incredibly revolting.

367
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:14,560
Speaker 1: And that we're not just talking about the eyeballs themselves,

368
00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:18,359
Speaker 1: but this also involves the eyebrows and the eyelashes. Yeah,

369
00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:20,480
Speaker 1: but if you do the exact same So if you

370
00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:22,960
Speaker 1: turn a do the exact same thing, but with the

371
00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:25,560
Speaker 1: face upside down. So you turn the face upside down

372
00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:29,720
Speaker 1: and then again rotate the eyes and the mouth upside

373
00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:33,280
Speaker 1: down relative to the face. You can't tell any difference

374
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:35,760
Speaker 1: between that and a normal face, So they look almost

375
00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:39,479
Speaker 1: exactly the same unless you really study hard. Yeah, if

376
00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:42,200
Speaker 1: you're just if you're just inverting the the eyes and

377
00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:45,640
Speaker 1: the mouth, the character looks like a demon. Otherwise you're

378
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:47,760
Speaker 1: just like, oh yeah, now that same faces upside down.

379
00:20:47,840 --> 00:20:49,760
Speaker 1: You have to really look at it to notice that

380
00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:53,160
Speaker 1: there's something altered altered there. But this study in particular

381
00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:56,479
Speaker 1: was trying to see how does this work with familiar faces,

382
00:20:56,800 --> 00:20:59,359
Speaker 1: And the example they used was famous faces, because you

383
00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:01,880
Speaker 1: can general account on people to be familiar with very

384
00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:05,560
Speaker 1: famous faces. But they were trying to see if familiarity

385
00:21:05,600 --> 00:21:07,720
Speaker 1: with faces might play a role in the speed of

386
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:11,159
Speaker 1: processing these types of images, and they found what they

387
00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:14,040
Speaker 1: were looking for did not hold. Participants in this study

388
00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:19,159
Speaker 1: were not any faster at processing grotesque inverted eyes and

389
00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:22,560
Speaker 1: mouth on famous faces, though the authors say it might

390
00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:26,400
Speaker 1: have been different if they'd used personally familiar faces rather

391
00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:28,720
Speaker 1: than famous faces. They acknowledge that that could be a

392
00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:32,000
Speaker 1: flaw in their their study design. But at the same time,

393
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:36,120
Speaker 1: while not faster, participants were more accurate quote in deciding

394
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:39,080
Speaker 1: if famous faces were grotesque or not when they were inverted,

395
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:41,200
Speaker 1: probably due to better knowledge of what the people look

396
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:44,840
Speaker 1: like when presented normally. And in interpreting this, they say

397
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,159
Speaker 1: quote altogether, famous faces seemed to be processed in a

398
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:53,119
Speaker 1: more elaborate, more expertise based way than non famous faces,

399
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:57,159
Speaker 1: whereas non famous inverted faces seemed to cause difficulties in

400
00:21:57,280 --> 00:22:00,399
Speaker 1: accurate and sensitive processing. And that's in listening to me

401
00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:04,440
Speaker 1: because of the invocation of generalized expertise in the different

402
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 1: kinds of face recognition, and it recalls the studies we

403
00:22:07,080 --> 00:22:09,560
Speaker 1: mentioned in the original Face blind this episode by Isabel

404
00:22:09,600 --> 00:22:14,000
Speaker 1: Gauthier and her colleagues showing that expertise in recognizing objects

405
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 1: like birds or cars, non face objects, recruits processing from

406
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:22,640
Speaker 1: this region of the brain, the fusiform face region, which

407
00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:24,399
Speaker 1: is the one we think of as the key to

408
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 1: allowing primary facial recognition. Alright, on that note, let's take

409
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:30,760
Speaker 1: a quick break and when we come back we'll do

410
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:34,600
Speaker 1: some more listener mail. Thank thank you, thank you, alright,

411
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:37,439
Speaker 1: We're back. Alright. Our next listener mail comes to us

412
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 1: from Emily. Emily writes, Hey, guys, big fan of the show,

413
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 1: first time sending listener mail. Feel free to use my

414
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 1: story in listener mail on the show with first name

415
00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 1: only if you find it interesting. We do, so we're

416
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:53,200
Speaker 1: using it. Emily says, I didn't realize it for many years,

417
00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 1: but I think I have had a relatively mild but

418
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:58,480
Speaker 1: still noticeable case of face blindness for my whole life.

419
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,280
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I have old blown face blindness, but

420
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 1: I think my facial recognition processing software works somewhere below average.

421
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: Besides taking me forever to get into TV shows because

422
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: I have a hard time keeping characters straight. The first

423
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 1: season of Game of Thrones was tough. It has caused

424
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:17,920
Speaker 1: me mild embarrassment more than a few times, a handful

425
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:22,119
Speaker 1: of which I will recount here. One I started a

426
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:24,720
Speaker 1: job in high school, working at a bustling office, and

427
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,400
Speaker 1: on either the first or the second day, I realized

428
00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:30,440
Speaker 1: that I couldn't recognize my manager, despite the fact that

429
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,560
Speaker 1: she had just hired and hired me and onboarded me.

430
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 1: People were on their feet for most of the day,

431
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:37,840
Speaker 1: so I couldn't just go back to her office and

432
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:40,680
Speaker 1: check because she wasn't there. She was a middle aged

433
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 1: woman who looked sort of like the other middle aged

434
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:46,239
Speaker 1: women in the office, and I simply could not recognize her,

435
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:50,280
Speaker 1: no distinguishing characteristics. I was too embarrassed to ask anyone

436
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:52,159
Speaker 1: who she was because I thought it would make me

437
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:56,119
Speaker 1: look really stupid. Two during college, I came home on

438
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:58,720
Speaker 1: a break and ran into a tall, bearded man wearing

439
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,159
Speaker 1: a beanie while I was in own. I gave him

440
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 1: a weird look when he came up to me and

441
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 1: started talking to me, until I realized it was my

442
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 1: own brother, who had not had a beard the last

443
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,440
Speaker 1: time I saw him a few months earlier. Three. A

444
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: few months ago, I was preparing to give testimony at

445
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,560
Speaker 1: a hearing at the Statehouse for work. There were a

446
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:19,200
Speaker 1: few dozen people also in the audience. A man in

447
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: a suit sat down next to me and started talking

448
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: to me as if he knew what I was going

449
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 1: to comment on. I was a little freaked out, and

450
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:28,320
Speaker 1: I asked him if we'd met before. Immediately he said

451
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 1: who he was and who he worked for. It turned

452
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:32,679
Speaker 1: out he was someone who I had met several times

453
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:36,359
Speaker 1: and corresponded with regularly via email for work. I did

454
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:39,160
Speaker 1: not recognize him wearing a suit and in a situation

455
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,119
Speaker 1: where I wasn't expecting to see him. I was extremely

456
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:45,240
Speaker 1: embarrassed and told him I had quote some face blindness,

457
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure if he believed me. I was

458
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:50,119
Speaker 1: nervous about the possibility that he would tell my boss

459
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: about my faux PAB, but I don't think he did,

460
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 1: and nothing ever came of it. I told several people

461
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 1: about the last incident, and they all thought it was

462
00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: really weird. This makes me feel like I probably have

463
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 1: some degree of actual face blindness rather than just being

464
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 1: a near average level of forgetful. I have an easier

465
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 1: time recognizing people by their voices and physicality like gate

466
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: posture or gestures, so I try to rely on that

467
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 1: as well as physical characteristics that stand out a lot,

468
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: at least until I get to know people better. I

469
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 1: need to have several face to face interactions with people

470
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: before I will be able to recognize them reliably. Not

471
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: sure if this qualifies as any form of prosopagnosia, but

472
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 1: I thought you might like to hear about it. I

473
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 1: enjoyed the episode on the topic keep up the great work. Well, Emily,

474
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: I'd say again, don't take our word as a as

475
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,680
Speaker 1: a medical diagnosis, but it sounds like you're describing some

476
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: of the classic indicators that are included on these inventories. Yeah.

477
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: I found a tidbit about Game of Thrones particularly interesting

478
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:46,640
Speaker 1: because I could see where that would be confusing because

479
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: it's essentially, uh, just a whole bunch of scruffy white

480
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: dudes that you have to keep track hop right, Um,

481
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: and they're they're not necessarily like dressing in ways that

482
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: Q is all that distinctive to us, right, A lot

483
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: of them are just wearing furs and leather and stuff. Now,

484
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 1: one uh television series mini series slash movie that that

485
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 1: I would be very interested to hear someone with face

486
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 1: blind this comment on is the adaptation of the Mahabarata

487
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 1: that came out in nine nine from Peter Brooks. This

488
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: is an excellent retelling of the of the Hindu epic. Uh.

489
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,520
Speaker 1: And he did an interesting thing with the casting and

490
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: said he cast each key character in the saga with

491
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: a different international actor, So all their characters are from

492
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: different races, they have different accents, uh And and of

493
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: course they're all um outstanding stage actors, so they have.

494
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 1: They tend to have very distinctive facial features as well.

495
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,919
Speaker 1: But I wonder how someone who has difficulty with faces

496
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: and has difficulty with something like Game of Thrones would

497
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: process something like this adaptation. Well, yeah, it seems like

498
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,440
Speaker 1: if you have a more diverse cast that would help

499
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 1: with like keeping the characters straight. I should also say,

500
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,120
Speaker 1: don't be afraid to have every character in your film

501
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,440
Speaker 1: or TV show, uh, feature a different hair color. Don't

502
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: stop it just the usuals either, Like just throwout some pink,

503
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,719
Speaker 1: some some blue, whatever you need to do to get

504
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: the job done. Have a space turn and everything. All right.

505
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 1: Here's another one. This one comes to us from Ben

506
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:21,919
Speaker 1: Hi Rob and Joe big Fan here from London, UK.

507
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to the episode on prosopagnosia and

508
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 1: felt compelled to write in as it happens, my sister

509
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,919
Speaker 1: has prosopagnosia and didn't even realize it until a few

510
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 1: years back. It's funny you mentioned Jane Goodall in the

511
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: episode two, because I met her once when living in

512
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 1: Beijing and brought it brought up her prosopagnosia with my

513
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: sister and it was then that something clicked for her.

514
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: We both completed a series of facial recognition tests online,

515
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:49,919
Speaker 1: where I scored about average thirty two out of fifty

516
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: or thereabouts, while my sister scored precisely zero. She says

517
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: she's had it forever but didn't realize it was an

518
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 1: actual condition. She can always recognize myself and other close

519
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:03,719
Speaker 1: family members, but she says she remembers other people by

520
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: their hairstyle or other defining features. If these features change,

521
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,439
Speaker 1: such as suddenly shaving your head, she won't recognize them

522
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:15,120
Speaker 1: next time they meet, especially if they meet accidentally somewhere. Also,

523
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: her job means she has to continually travel around while

524
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,639
Speaker 1: holding events, and she always has people coming up to

525
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 1: her and addressing her by name. Her cheats for dealing

526
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,880
Speaker 1: with this is to just reply hey man, buddy, sir,

527
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 1: dude with a smile and buy some time to try

528
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: and work out who they are. I'm not sure if

529
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 1: prosopagnosia is on a sliding scale, but my sister hasn't

530
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: had any massively detrimental consequences from having this condition. She

531
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: just says faces are all the same and she's developed

532
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: a killer bluffing ability in social situations. Anyway, fascinating condition

533
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: and serendipitous episode. Keep up the great work. Well, thanks

534
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: for getting in touch, Ben, Yeah, that's interesting. We had

535
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: talked in the episode about ways that often when somebody

536
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: has some kind of neurological impairment or some limited ability

537
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: in one way, other neural systems will kick in to compensate. Now,

538
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: one thing we talked about with people with prosopagnosia is

539
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 1: that often if you have trouble recognizing faces, you can

540
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: become hyper aware of other types of body cues Like

541
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: you mentioned gate posture, all those kinds of things. You

542
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: notice those far better than a person with normal facial

543
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: recognition skills would. But I hadn't thought before about how

544
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: other compensation skills could kick in apart from perceptive and

545
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: recognition based ones like bluffing ability. I mean, that is

546
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: a cognitive skill that I I know, like, I would

547
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: not be good at that, But I wonder if I

548
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: had had to spend my entire life honing that skill,

549
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 1: I might be a very different person. I might be

550
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: much better at, like trying to figure things out on

551
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 1: the fly based on little conversational cues about how to

552
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: get to a name Yeah, I mean it's interesting to

553
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: to just think about how un adapted one would become

554
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: to working around these different blockages. Yeah, by the way,

555
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: fun fun at Joe. I actually cannot tell A C.

556
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 1: D C songs apart. I like them when I hear them,

557
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: but to me, it's it's all the same. It's like

558
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 1: the faces for Ben's sister. What about the A C,

559
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: D C songs that have distinctive markings. Um, I mean,

560
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: I guess lyrically, like if if I'm if I hear

561
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: it and they hit something in the chorus, then yes,

562
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: I could maybe tell by the lyrics, but I definitely

563
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to tell by the music. Even though

564
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: again I like the music, it just all kind of

565
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: sounds the same to me. There are a lot of

566
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: rock songs that sound the same. I mean the same

567
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: way that. Broadly speaking, there are only so many ways

568
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: you can arrange a couple of eyes and nose in

569
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: a mouth. There're only so many ways you can do

570
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: four chords. In general. Comments on machismo, It's kind of

571
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: like if you look at the hair metal bands of

572
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, certainly a lot of that music

573
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: is going to sound the same UH. To really differentiate them,

574
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: you do have to go on visual clues, right or

575
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: but the bands all look the same. Yeah, you do

576
00:30:57,680 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 1: run into a problem there. Then you have to look

577
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 1: at what kind of fonts they used in their UH

578
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: in their band name. Okay, there you that becomes the

579
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: determining factor, all right. Our next email comes from our

580
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 1: listener Jeff. Jeff writes, I've always had profound face blindness,

581
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: but was an adult before I knew such a thing

582
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: was well a thing. There's a subjective problem. Brains and

583
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: perception are first person. What's it like to be Jeff?

584
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: For me? As a young child, I was amazed by

585
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: other kids they had this ability to instantly recognize people.

586
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: As an older child, I realized with a sinking feeling,

587
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: that it was not some magic they had, but a

588
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: deficit I had. And I tried to recognize people. I

589
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: look hard at features and try to mentally map them

590
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: without avail. I recollect, feeling depressed that I just couldn't

591
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: try harder. I did learn to know my friends by

592
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: their particular behaviors, especially gates and profiles. I got good

593
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: at this as a child. There is the help of

594
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: fairly regular dress, so there was the friend who wore

595
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 1: turtleneck shirts and one who always wore dress pants and

596
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: never jeans. Red hair being uncommon in my group was

597
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: a cue, but it was always hard. In context was

598
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: the major aid I knew if I went to a

599
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 1: particular house, my friend, maybe his sister, and maybe one

600
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 1: of his friends might be there. Always when I controlled

601
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 1: the context through meetings, I was okay. Parties were stifling,

602
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: as was the quote greater world, as anyone could be anybody,

603
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: it presents his social shyness introversion, or conversely as being

604
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: aloof or stuck up at failing to properly greet folks

605
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 1: strangers abound. Recognition in another person's eyes is fear, and

606
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 1: I learned the etiquette of an enthusiastic, nameless, neutral greeting.

607
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 1: I could go on about it, I mean, my late

608
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: fifties and still deal with it. My personal doctor chided

609
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 1: me the other day when I apparently had not greeted

610
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: her as she walked her dog. Context my sister, visiting

611
00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: from out of town, appeared at a bookstore and says hi,

612
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 1: with no wreck cognition from me. Context lots can be

613
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: done with paying attention to characteristics other than faces, builds, hair, gait, voice,

614
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: and other subtle idiosyncrasies. I like to think it's made

615
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: me notice such things and have a better, if somewhat

616
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: narrower attention. It doesn't bother me much these days. Here's

617
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: the only message I can offer. Kids who have this

618
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 1: don't know it. This is what it's like to be Jeff.

619
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: Parents likely have no clue. It's really hard to characterize

620
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: and know that there's anything odd to report. If a

621
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: deficit has noticed, it may very well be misattributed to

622
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: some other problem with social skills, intelligence, or even autism.

623
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: I found out about it on my own as an adult,

624
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: learning about it from reading about the mind and brain.

625
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: It would have been nice if young Jeff could have

626
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 1: been told that it really was a thing. I think

627
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: Jeff makes some really good points here. I mean, it

628
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: seems like there could be profound benefit from just increasing

629
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: awareness of this. Yeah, like I could, I can see

630
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: how this You could start folding this in to um

631
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 1: to some of your educational efforts with with young kids.

632
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: You know that there you could have story books about

633
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:10,479
Speaker 1: this that that people are going to process the world

634
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: around them in slightly different ways. Yeah. I even I

635
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: found a study about the psychosocial consequences of prosopagnosia from

636
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: the Journal of Psychosomatic Research from two thousand and eight

637
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: by Lucy Yardley at all and basically, this looked at

638
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: the psychological and social consequences of living with developmental prosopagnosia.

639
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: It consisted of telephone interviews with twenty five people who

640
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 1: scored as face recognition impaired on the Cambridge Face Recognition Test,

641
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:42,280
Speaker 1: and the results were that all participants described recurring social

642
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 1: problems caused by their inability to recognize faces, and this

643
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: led to consequences like chronic anxiety about offending people, feelings

644
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: of guilt, embarrassment, failure. Of course, there's nothing to feel

645
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 1: guilty about, right, but people felt bad like they were

646
00:34:56,400 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: doing something wrong by not being able to recognize people

647
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,879
Speaker 1: bill Most, but not all, reported feelings of like having

648
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: avoided social situations, including work meetings and social gatherings because

649
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: of fear they had about their inability to recognize faces.

650
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,399
Speaker 1: And this could lead to all kinds of problems in life.

651
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: Right like you, you could end up dependent on help

652
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: from others or with a restricted social circle, or cause

653
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: problems with your opportunities and employment, or it could undermine

654
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 1: yourself confidence. And a pretty good remedy for this is,

655
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:32,799
Speaker 1: like we're saying, increasing awareness and increasing awareness in both directions, right,

656
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 1: Like making people aware that this is a condition that

657
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: might be present in other people, and that they should

658
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:40,839
Speaker 1: try to be helpful in accommodating with somebody who doesn't

659
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: recognize your face is not necessarily because they're aloof for

660
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,359
Speaker 1: their rude and you should judge them that this might

661
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,280
Speaker 1: just be something that they don't have the same ability

662
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: that you have at And then the other side would

663
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: be making people aware that they might have the condition

664
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: and helping increase diagnoses of people who have it so

665
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: they can can explain the situation to other us and

666
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:03,839
Speaker 1: avoid these kinds of misperceptions. Yeah, I mean, I think

667
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: a lot of it does come down to um to

668
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: sort of informing your empathy, informing your theory of mind

669
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,879
Speaker 1: so that you're not just duplicating your basic mind state

670
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 1: when you're trying to to figure out how another person

671
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:19,719
Speaker 1: is viewing the world. All right, on that note, we're

672
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 1: going to take another break, and when we come back,

673
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:26,439
Speaker 1: we'll hit some more listener mail than All right, we're back.

674
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 1: So this one comes to us from Hugh. Hugh rights

675
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 1: in and says, hey, guys, I'm a longtime listener, even

676
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:34,759
Speaker 1: if I have no idea about most of your sci

677
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 1: fi references. Oh well, we appreciate that. Well, that's okay.

678
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 1: We try not to include so many that it it

679
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: makes it difficult for for non sci fi fans, non

680
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 1: horror fans, or what have you to follow the episode.

681
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 1: I hope we don't fail too hard at that. Uh.

682
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: Hugh continues, I've just heard your episode on face blindness.

683
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: I think I may have the opposite of this. When

684
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,399
Speaker 1: I see a complete stranger in the street, I think

685
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: it's someone I know. I'm typing this on the train

686
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: and I saw a guy who I thought was my

687
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: old housemate from years ago. Of course it wasn't him.

688
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 1: I tend to group faces into sets. The guy on

689
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: the train had all the facial mannerisms of my housemate.

690
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: I instantly thought it was him. It's more specific than

691
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: just crop red hair and glasses. The problem is, I'm

692
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 1: pretty outgoing. When I see someone who has all the

693
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 1: facial mannerisms of someone I used to know, like my

694
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: friend's brother I met once, I'll go over and say hi,

695
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 1: often to my wife's embarrassment. I guess I'm just good

696
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 1: at spotting averagely accurate doppelgangers. Anyway, while in my eyes

697
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: you both look like many other people. Uh, in my ears,

698
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:43,839
Speaker 1: nobody makes a podcast like this. Keep up the great work.

699
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: Hugh from Sydney. Oh, thanks, Hugh. Uh. You know this

700
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 1: got me thinking too about this in a number of

701
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 1: emails about uh, the other information that one can process

702
00:37:56,000 --> 00:38:00,080
Speaker 1: to identify an individual. And I wonder we did and

703
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: so much on faces that I imagine other people have

704
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: had the situation as well. Where you are you're almost

705
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: certain you see someone you know, but their positions so

706
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 1: that you cannot see their face. Perhaps you're in an

707
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 1: exercise class, or you're seated formally, you know, in a

708
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: theater or a restaurant, and you can't. But but you

709
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 1: have this feeling that you cannot be for sure unless

710
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 1: you have some unless you see their face, unless you

711
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: have essentially facial confirmation of the individual. Uh. And it's

712
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to feel because then when they finally

713
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:35,320
Speaker 1: look your way, you're like, oh, yeah, that was of

714
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: course them. I knew it was them, but I could

715
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:43,239
Speaker 1: not deal. I was sure until I actually saw them

716
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: and even made eye contact with them. So we had

717
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: this recently when we were in New York at the

718
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: One Strange Rock Front, when I from behind was eight

719
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 1: nine percent sure that this that this guy with the

720
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:57,720
Speaker 1: cane with the skull on the end was the magician

721
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:02,320
Speaker 1: and skeptic James Randy, but I could be positive. It

722
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 1: took us a while to confirm. Yeah, yeah, But I

723
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: have that happened with just people I know or people

724
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: that I don't know super well. But say I I

725
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:13,319
Speaker 1: go to some of the same like social functions with them,

726
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: and if I can't see that face, there's just like

727
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: I I can't stop thinking about it, like I I

728
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 1: have to see their face. And that's where it can

729
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:22,719
Speaker 1: get awkward if it's on the train and you're in

730
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:24,839
Speaker 1: that situation where you've just looped them more or less

731
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: into the category of individuals like this, and then you're like,

732
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna go look at this person's face.

733
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,240
Speaker 1: And then you look at them and it's a complete stranger,

734
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:33,800
Speaker 1: and then you feel like you're a stalker. That is

735
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 1: a bad feeling. Indeed, now, following up from what Hugh said, again,

736
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear that we are not

737
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 1: trying to offer diagnoses of people based on their emails,

738
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:45,799
Speaker 1: so you should not take this as a medical diagnosis.

739
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: It is not, but what you're describing does sound like

740
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 1: it's sort of matches a known condition I think we

741
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: mentioned in the original episode known as hyper familiarity for

742
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 1: unknown faces or h FF, and just to talk about

743
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:04,399
Speaker 1: a quick study on this published in Plos one called

744
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 1: neurofunctional signature of Hyperfamiliarity for Unknown Faces. The definition is

745
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,760
Speaker 1: that quote. It is a rare selective disorder that consists

746
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:17,280
Speaker 1: of the disturbing and abnormal feeling of familiarity for unknown faces,

747
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: while recognition of known faces as normal. So it's not

748
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: that you can't recognize people. You can recognize people normally,

749
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: but you're also constantly recognizing people who are not the

750
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:30,399
Speaker 1: people you think they are. So this was a case

751
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: study of g N who is a sixty eight year

752
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: old woman with selective hyperfamiliarity for unknown faces, and the

753
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 1: authors did a multimodal brain imaging study on what happened

754
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 1: when she saw and recognized or did not recognize familiar

755
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: and unfamiliar faces that use CT scanning and f m

756
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:51,320
Speaker 1: r I together with behavioral measures to to see what

757
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 1: was going on, and behaviorally, she had essentially much lower

758
00:40:56,080 --> 00:41:01,200
Speaker 1: discrimination sensitivity between familiar and unfamiliar faces and normal controls.

759
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: And in light of this lower discrimination, basically her brain

760
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: was biased toward classifying faces as familiar. So what was

761
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 1: actually happening in the brain? While the authors say that

762
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: there appeared to be atrophy and low functioning of the

763
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: left hemisphere temporal regions, so the left side of the

764
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 1: brain is underperforming compared to what it would normally be

765
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:26,399
Speaker 1: doing and in recognizing faces. And then at the same time,

766
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: quote hyperfamiliarity feelings were selectively associated with enhanced activity in

767
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:36,879
Speaker 1: the right medial and inferior temporal cortices. So it looks

768
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 1: like the face recognition process involves regions of both the

769
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,360
Speaker 1: left and the right hemisphere and that they do different

770
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: things there. If the left hemisphere is underperforming, the right

771
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 1: hemisphere takes over and contend to over bias in favor

772
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:53,959
Speaker 1: of saying, hey, I know this person now. Why would

773
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 1: there be this hemisphere division? Well, the authors write that

774
00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 1: the temporal areas of the left hemisphere are you usually

775
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:04,759
Speaker 1: used to analyze and encode unique facial features, whereas the

776
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 1: right hemisphere tends towards a quote more global but less

777
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 1: efficient encoding of facial traits. So it sounds like the

778
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 1: right hemisphere is more often used to encode and react

779
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 1: to a kind of general impression of a face, whereas

780
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 1: the left hemisphere tends to pick out specific identifiers and

781
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: features for higher accuracy, And so the authors write that

782
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: quote the greater reliance on the right hemisphere therefore facilitates

783
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: spurious feelings of familiarity and misattribution of personal relevance to

784
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:41,320
Speaker 1: unknown faces. These erroneous familiarity feelings cannot be counterbalanced or

785
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: corrected by more precise associations in the left hemisphere between

786
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: visual facial cues and specific knowledge pertaining to a unique identity,

787
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 1: and therefore lead to a liberal decision criterion concerning face

788
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 1: familiarity recognition. And in addition to just being the fact

789
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: that Hugh seems to be describing something to describing some

790
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:03,879
Speaker 1: degree of hyper familiarity of faces, it also goes along

791
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: with what he's saying about grouping faces into sets of

792
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: kinds of faces. If if what's going on in his

793
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 1: brain is that he might be over relying on the

794
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:17,280
Speaker 1: right hemisphere uh to sort of like get these general

795
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: impressions of faces and under relying on the specific unique

796
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 1: characteristics that more accurately identify a face. All right, now,

797
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 1: here's our next two or rather interesting because they both

798
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:33,840
Speaker 1: relate to migrains and face blindness. I found these particularly fascinating.

799
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Amelia. Hi, guys, I'm

800
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 1: just listening to your podcast about prosopagnosia or face blindness,

801
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 1: and when you mentioned other types of agnosia, you mentioned

802
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 1: finger agnosia, which was very interesting to me. I have

803
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 1: suffered from migraine headache since I was a teenager, and

804
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:52,800
Speaker 1: one of the first symptoms I get of an imminent

805
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: migrain is that my hands look like someone else's. You

806
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 1: know how normally, when you're doing something, you can see

807
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:01,799
Speaker 1: your hand ends, but your brain doesn't really pay much

808
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:04,359
Speaker 1: attention to them, a bit like your brain seeing your

809
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: nose all the time but ignoring it. Well, when I'm

810
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: about to have a migraine and see my hands, it's

811
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: like I'm seeing someone else's hands doing whatever it is

812
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 1: they are doing. My brain is obviously still controlling them

813
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 1: and they are doing what I'm asking them to do,

814
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:20,959
Speaker 1: but there is some kind of disconnection in the brain

815
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 1: that doesn't recognize them as my hands. I am very

816
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: interested in all the symptoms of migraines due to my

817
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:29,440
Speaker 1: own personal experience of them and the weirdness of it all.

818
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:31,400
Speaker 1: But I had never heard of anyone else having this.

819
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: Hands aren't my own symptom that I get, it's all.

820
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 1: It also doesn't seem to affect any other part of

821
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 1: my body, just my hands. In contrast to this, I am,

822
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell when comparing myself to friends,

823
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: above average at recognizing faces. Just thought you'd be interested

824
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 1: in this weird symptom I have with best wishes, Amelia. Now, Amelia,

825
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: that is really interesting and we we will address that

826
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: right after. We also read this email from our listener Ross,

827
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: who also brought up my rains in migraine. Aura Ross writes, Hey,

828
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: Joe and Robert, my name's Ross. I'm a new listener

829
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: to your program and I found that it's perfect for

830
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 1: working on art too. I'm an illustrator and an animator,

831
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: and I love to put on your show while I'm

832
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: working on projects. Here's another artist. Your last show about

833
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: face blindness was super interesting and hit close to home

834
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 1: for me. While I don't suffer from prosopagnosia in the

835
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 1: sense that you talked about. I do, however, suffer from

836
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: complex migraines. While experiencing a migraine episode, I will have

837
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 1: a whole slew of neurological symptoms before the pain even starts.

838
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: This phase of the episode, I've come to understand it's

839
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: called the migraine aura, and while it's a pretty trippy experience,

840
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:40,359
Speaker 1: it's a good way to know whether I should find

841
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: a dark and quiet place to lie down before the

842
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: real fun stuff starts. My aura symptoms include blind spots,

843
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:50,399
Speaker 1: mental fog, numbness in my face and hands, and, strangely enough,

844
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: something close to prosopagnosia. Over the years, I've noticed that

845
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:57,800
Speaker 1: while I'm having aura symptoms, I'm temporarily unable to visualize

846
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: specific faces in my mind's eye, or even recognize my

847
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 1: friends and family if they're in front of me. Though

848
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:05,960
Speaker 1: I can't see much of anything with the blind spots.

849
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: It's rather disconcerting, especially since so much of my profession

850
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 1: relies on drawing faces. However, after about an hour and

851
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 1: a half, all the symptoms will go away and the

852
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 1: headache will start. I thought it was interesting when you

853
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: brought up the caricature artists, wondering if any have face blindness.

854
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: While my face blindness is always temporary, I always regain

855
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: my pretty uncanny ability to recognize faces. I'm one of

856
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 1: those people who has a knack for recognizing actors with

857
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: no lasting damage. My artistic abilities are also unimpacted by

858
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:38,720
Speaker 1: my occasional bouts with migrains, and I find that, if anything,

859
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 1: I'm better at observing faces, knowing what it's like not

860
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: having that ability. I'm nowhere near savvy enough to research

861
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: why this may be. But hey, you could do a

862
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:49,839
Speaker 1: show on migrains. Loved the show and I look forward

863
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 1: to hearing the next one. Now, that was really fascinating.

864
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,840
Speaker 1: I I've I don't think we've ever done a proper

865
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:59,840
Speaker 1: episode of stuff to blow your mind on migrains and effects,

866
00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: but we should, because I'm always amazed and new when

867
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: I stumbled upon information about it. Yeah, and Amelia and Ross,

868
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:09,160
Speaker 1: you should know that the things you describe are in

869
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:12,160
Speaker 1: fact represented already in the medical literature. So I was

870
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:14,880
Speaker 1: able to find at least a couple of studies mentioning

871
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: things like this. There was a study in two thousand

872
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 1: six by sand Or at all in Cephalagia, which is

873
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,360
Speaker 1: a pure viewed medical journal about headaches. That was a

874
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 1: case report of a fifty eight year old left handed

875
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 1: man who reported prosopagnosia in association with migraine aura, so

876
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 1: he'd get the migraine aura and he'd lose his ability

877
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:35,919
Speaker 1: to recognize faces. There was another study from two thousand seven,

878
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: also in Cephalagia, by Vincent and Haji Khani, and this

879
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: was about how migraines have the power to in fact

880
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: affect all kinds of cortical physiology and induce all kinds

881
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 1: of dysfunctions. So the authors questioned people who had migraine

882
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 1: with aura and migraine without aura, and they found that

883
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:56,280
Speaker 1: seventy two point two percent of migraine with aura patients

884
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 1: and forty eight point six percent of migraine without or

885
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: A patients had symptoms including at least some of the

886
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: following prosopagnosia, dis chromatopsia, which is the inability to see

887
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 1: some colors or some general impairment of color vision, and

888
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:17,240
Speaker 1: then also ideational apraxia, which is defined as quote loss

889
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 1: of ability to conceptualize, plan, and execute motor actions involving

890
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,800
Speaker 1: the use of tools or objects, so suddenly like you

891
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: couldn't use a screwdriver or a knife for something. This

892
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:32,800
Speaker 1: next one might be very applicable to Amelia alien hand syndrome.

893
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: Multiple people report alien hand syndrome as a result of

894
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 1: migraine aura or migraine without aura, and this would, uh,

895
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: this would be basically what Amelia is describing, the feeling

896
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 1: that a hand you have is not in fact your

897
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 1: own hand. And also difficulty recognized, recognizing and and calling

898
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:53,879
Speaker 1: to mind proper names. So this to me also really

899
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 1: makes it seem like it would be worthwhile to cover

900
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 1: migraines and migraine aura in general in an episode that

901
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 1: they can have such why ranging effects throughout the brain. Yeah, indeed,

902
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 1: I think we should definitely come back to it. And

903
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 1: also I mean we we know we're going to have

904
00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:10,840
Speaker 1: a large selection of listeners who have stories about about

905
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 1: migraines and migraine auras to report. Uh, in fact, you

906
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:16,320
Speaker 1: can maybe we should just ask people to go ahead

907
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:20,560
Speaker 1: and emails about those migraines and symptoms that you encounter

908
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,920
Speaker 1: so that we can have those ahead of the episode

909
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:26,320
Speaker 1: we wind up doing on it. All Right, we have

910
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 1: one last bit of listener mail to hit before we

911
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 1: sign off for today. Uh doesn't mean that these will

912
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: be the only face blindness emails that we read. When

913
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 1: we get around to doing our next listener mail episode,

914
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:41,799
Speaker 1: we may have some more that we roll out as well,

915
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: in addition to unrelated emails. But this one comes to

916
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 1: us from Kyle. Kyle says, Hey, guys, big fans, Stuff

917
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 1: to blow your mind is my favorite of your podcast selection.

918
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: Keep up the awesome work. So this is kind of odd,

919
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: but after listening to your episode on face blindness, you

920
00:49:57,080 --> 00:49:59,680
Speaker 1: would have mentioned other agnosis such as finger and hand

921
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 1: blind no, and thought this would be a funny story.

922
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: I've recently been getting into virtual reality with the HTC Vibe,

923
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:10,719
Speaker 1: which is in itself incredibly mind blowing. But after my

924
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 1: first month with the headset, and it's a convincing replacement

925
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 1: of reality, I completely lost awareness of my hands. I

926
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:20,919
Speaker 1: was spending so much time and environments where your hands

927
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:25,239
Speaker 1: were invisible that my brain retrained itself. Apparently, for maybe

928
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 1: a month, I couldn't associate my hands in the real

929
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 1: world with my own. I felt like someone else's hands

930
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 1: waving in front of my face. I guess this maybe

931
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 1: falls under body dysmorphia or phantom limb phenomenon, but possibly

932
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 1: but it may relate to finger agnosia. Anyways, it was

933
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 1: a crazy experience. It apparently happens to a lot of people.

934
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:49,439
Speaker 1: I was worried for so long, but it eventually wore off.

935
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 1: Take care of guys. Kyle, Well, that is interesting. I

936
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 1: had not heard anything of this before, and I know

937
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:59,439
Speaker 1: we have a number of listeners who are really into

938
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: virtual reality these days, so I would love to hear

939
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:08,800
Speaker 1: from other folks who have had strange occurrences with invisible hands.

940
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:12,640
Speaker 1: I have seen four demonstrations of the way that perception

941
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: and just general perceptual stimuli can change your relationship with

942
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:20,360
Speaker 1: a part of your body. One example would be this experiment.

943
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 1: If you've never seen it done before, I think I've

944
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: mentioned it in the podcast before that um, someone can

945
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 1: replace your hand, Like you put your hands on the

946
00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 1: table and one of your hands is behind a wall

947
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:34,800
Speaker 1: where you can't see it, and instead the person performing

948
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 1: the experiment puts a rubber hand on table, uh that

949
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 1: looks like it could be your hand, and they train

950
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,240
Speaker 1: you to think of it as your hand by touching

951
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: or stimulating your real hand while also giving you the

952
00:51:48,040 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 1: visual cues that they're touching or stimulating the fake hand,

953
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 1: like like the rubber hand and the real hand that

954
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 1: is out of sight or both rubbed with a feather

955
00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 1: at the same time at the same time. Yeah, and

956
00:51:57,520 --> 00:51:59,720
Speaker 1: then after a minute or so of this, if somebody

957
00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:02,239
Speaker 1: hit it's the rubber hand with a hammer, you will

958
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:04,719
Speaker 1: freak out like you think like your hand has just

959
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 1: been hit and it you. You can essentially quite quickly

960
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 1: train your brain to recalibrate its own sense of where

961
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:15,800
Speaker 1: and what its body is. It's crazy. It's just another

962
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 1: one of those experiments that really drives home the true

963
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 1: nature of our perception, uh and our our understanding of reality.

964
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:27,600
Speaker 1: All right, So there you have it. UH. An entire

965
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:30,759
Speaker 1: listener Mail episode devoted the face blindness. Again, these were

966
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: not all of the emails we received. Now, there's a

967
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:34,920
Speaker 1: lot of good stuff we couldn't get to, and we'll

968
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:37,959
Speaker 1: and we'll likely receive some some additional emails. So again,

969
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:40,560
Speaker 1: the next time we do a listener mail, we're averaging

970
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 1: about one a month. Really, that seems like a good

971
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 1: way to tackle and stay ahead of the wonderful um

972
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 1: emails that that that all of you send. Us the

973
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:52,279
Speaker 1: next time we'll we'll try and hit some more of these.

974
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: In the meantime, head on over to stuff to Blow

975
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:56,839
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That is our mothership. That's where

976
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: we will find all of the podcast episodes, as well

977
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 1: as links out to our various social media accounts to

978
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:05,239
Speaker 1: also find all the podcast episodes. Wherever you get your

979
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:09,520
Speaker 1: podcasts and wherever that is, we always encourage you, Hey,

980
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:11,840
Speaker 1: give us a strong rating, give us as many stars

981
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:15,360
Speaker 1: as possible, give us a glowing review. Uh. It doesn't

982
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:17,840
Speaker 1: take much time on your part and it really helps

983
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: us out in the end. Big thanks as always to

984
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 1: our wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and try Harrison. If

985
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us directly

986
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 1: to give us feedback on this episode or any other,

987
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 1: to let us know your thoughts about any of the

988
00:53:29,719 --> 00:53:32,239
Speaker 1: stuff we talked about today, or just to say hi,

989
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:34,759
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how

990
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

991
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:49,399
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com?

992
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 1: Think it doesn't, It doesn't. Foo