WEBVTT - Listener Mail: Kingdom of the Face Blind 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.119 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:14.720 dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.360 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.800 not too long ago, Robert and I did an episode 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:26.479 about prosopagnosia, or the condition often known as face blindness. Now, 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.040 we discussed a little bit in the episode how that 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.360 is kind of a misnomer because it's not so much 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:37.200 blindness but an inability to recognize and and recall familiarity 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.720 with faces in the same way that that most people can, 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.400 right right, Yeah, Like, this was something that was kind 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.879 of a challenge and coming up with landing page art 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.120 for that episode because they didn't want to go with 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.360 a Hannibal like face of like faceless specter kind of 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.400 an image. What I ended up doing is picking one 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.160 where you had an individual with a pixelized face, because 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.480 I felt like that granted with faceblinness or not seeing 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.880 a pixelized face, but they it is more in line 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:10.320 with a distortion of sensory data and inability to to 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:16.640 correctly identify somebody based on this particular area of sensory information. Yeah, 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.440 it implies scrambling of matching. Yeah, So this was a 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.200 really interesting topic to me, and I was glad we 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:23.920 did an episode on it. But I knew in the 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.039 episode since one of the figures we came across was 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:30.520 that multiple studies have done surveys and found that somewhere 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:34.960 around maybe between one and three percent, usually estimated around 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:39.120 two percent of the general population has some level of 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:44.160 developmental prosopagnosia. So one in fifty people you can expect 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.000 are going to have some level of trouble recognizing faces 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.440 within the normal range of human ability. And what this 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.720 meant is, well, we've got to have tons of listeners 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.720 who have some form of face blindness. So we asked 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.680 in the episode if anybody wanted to share their experience 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.360 as well. We heard from a lot of you. Yeah, indeed, 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:03.960 And like you said, we knew we were going to 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.680 get sense some listener feedback here, but I guess I 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.400 wasn't really prepared for just how many, because essentially the 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.000 the episode I think aired on a Thursday, and so 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.920 the entire weekend was just but mostly emails from listeners 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:18.440 who have some degree of face blindness. Oh, I'd say 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.880 by sometime on Friday, I think we'd heard from at 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.920 least a dozen people, but they just kept coming in. 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.520 So we we do have to say that we're not 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:28.360 going to be able to get to all of the 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.680 messages we got from everyone who got into contact with 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.560 us about face blindness or related topics. Some people reported, uh, 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:37.880 you know, similar related ideas that I think would also 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.040 be fun to discuss. But today we wanted to read 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.640 some of these messages and talk about what what ideas 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.000 get brought up in them, and also relate back to 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.680 some other some other follow up research. Yeah, and since 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.600 all the emails today are about face blindness, I took 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.160 the liberty of of taking out our mail bot, Carnie's 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.760 facial recognition software. So now he is going to identify 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.959 Joe and me purely by by smell and by touch. 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:08.120 Which one of us is the rough one? I'm going 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.000 to leave that to Carney. Carney is going to develop 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:14.320 his own a smell and touch profile for each of us. 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:16.680 This this may be disgusting, t M. I I think 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.680 I'm just getting over my my gross like alligator winter hands. 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.160 I can't like really dried out in my knuckles. Yeah, well, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.200 only I had cut myself shaving this morning, which sometimes 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.760 I do I sometimes they come into the podcast studio 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.239 and I'm still bleeding um from the neck. That would 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.640 have actually helped Carney out quite a bit, I think. Well, 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:39.880 hopefully at least Carney can hand messages to one or 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.000 the other of us in either way they'll get read 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.320 right and and he may since none of it, neither 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.280 of us is bleeding, he might make an incision on 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:49.920 one of us, just to keep track, So just be 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.720 prepared for that. Okay. Our first message is from our listener, Lindsay, 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.520 who writes in and says, hello, Robert and Joe. I 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.120 just finished listening to your episode about face blindness. I 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.960 could relate a lot to the bits about Oliver Sacks. 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:05.600 Much of what he said was familiar, even if I 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.240 hadn't realized it before hearing your show. I've often wondered 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:12.160 if I have face blindness, but then usually dismiss myself 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.120 as a hypochondriac and tell myself it's because I'm not 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.800 paying enough attention to my surroundings that I can't recognize 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.520 people or place as well. Professionally, I'm an artist, so 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.960 you just assume about yourself that you must be good 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.080 at observation, right, So why can't you remember if you've 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.240 met someone before. It's a confusing situation to be in. 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:33.800 I pay a lot of attention to the slope of 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.320 people's noses, clothing styles, or their mannerisms to help me 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:42.960 rely on recognition. Auditory cues and context are also very useful. 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.280 The problem is much less pronounced with people I see frequently, 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:50.000 whereas a passing acquaintance or celebrity is much harder. It's 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.480 also difficult to visualize people's faces as a whole in 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.800 my mind. Sometimes I can zero in on features about 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.120 them or expressions, but my mental image of their face 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.160 is often somewhat blurry. It's odd because I have a 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:08.200 very good memory for other things. I'm also directionally challenged. 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.320 If I park my car to walk to a specific restaurant, 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.520 I often forget which way I need to walk to 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.080 get there, and so I look for queues like how 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.200 close I am to the end of the street and 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.800 how far I remember the restaurant being from the end 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.160 of the street, or I'll hope to see a distinctive 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.560 tree or building I know is across from the place 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:29.120 I'm going to. The issue seems exacerbated if the streets 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.280 look very similar. If they're all flat and straight at 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.040 right angles to one another, it's hopeless. I frequently forget 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.159 where I park in parking lots and have learned to 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.240 notice the angle I need to walk to the front 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.560 door of a store to get back to my car, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:45.760 a sign that is in line with the row I 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.839 parked in, or I'll park in a similar location every 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.600 time I visit it. I've never been diagnosed with prosopagnosia, 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:54.760 so take all this with a grain of salt. I 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.080 wonder what percentage of people actually get diagnosed or just 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.440 explain away the whole situation I do with theories of 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.040 early memory loss or a short span of attention for 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:08.479 my surroundings brought on by the age of instant gratification. Regardless, 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.080 I hope this was insightful best. Lindsay, that was very incifle. 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:16.400 I especially appreciate, uh finding out that that that Lindsay 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.960 is an artist. Yeah, and uh, and about how there's 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:23.120 this sort of expectation that they would have perfect observational skills. Now, 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.880 we actually heard from more than one person who reported 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.000 having some degree of face blindness and reported being a 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.600 professional artist. I think we heard from I think at 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.479 least three people like this. Now, we do, I think, 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.279 tend to have a lot of artists out in the audience. 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.360 We hear from them often. Um, but yeah, I think 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.159 this is really interesting. I was reading a totally different 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.080 story that was published and wired back in two thousand 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.919 six by a writer named Joshua Davis about prosopagnosia, and 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:52.960 he profiled a bunch of people and one of the 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:57.600 people he discussed with prosopagnosia was this guy named Tom 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.320 in the story. And one interesting feature of mom was 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.080 that Tom was an artist and he loved doing sketches 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.320 of people of his friends and family. But when he 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.800 drew people, they didn't have faces. And he didn't think 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.080 this was weird because he thought, you know, I'm identifying 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.360 the people in the pictures, and they're identified by their 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.600 posture and things like that, why do they need faces? 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.120 Another person might look at those drawings and think, oh, 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.160 that's kind of creepy. That's like, you know, drawing people 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.560 without faces, like something out of the ring or something. 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.360 But like, uh, but no, I mean it made sense 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.160 to him, and you can see why it would if 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:34.640 you are cataloging people by visual cues other than the 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.000 minute differences in the arrangement of eyes and nose and 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.040 mouth and stuff that comes so naturally to most people, 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.240 you know it. I have to think of it in 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:48.120 terms of of writing too, Like one might easily jump 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.920 through the conclusion, oh, well, you uh you write fiction. Uh, 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.000 you must have just a great grasp of of human 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.400 psychology and character, or or you must have just you know, 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.240 uh fu too graphic memory of the world around you 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.600 so that you can uh describe it, um, you know, 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.000 on the page. But you know, obviously there are a 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.800 number of different You look at any any writer and 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:13.440 compare them to another writer, and they're going to have 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:17.600 a different degrees of focus in detail on say a 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:22.400 physical setting, or even on you know, character and internal dialogue. 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.480 I think it's fair to say that some writers may 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.320 write about people because they don't have some sort of 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:34.520 spectacular insight into how they work, and maybe they're mystified 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.360 by people, and therefore like this is their way of 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:41.240 trying to really dissect it and figure out what's going on. Well, 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.040 to go back to a similar episode we've done in 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.400 the past, when we did an episode on a phantasia 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.760 the Blindness of the Mind's Eye, The lack of inner imagery. 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.400 We heard from lots of listeners who they said, I 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:55.559 have a fantasia and here's what it's like. And we 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.400 heard from more than one writer of fiction who who 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.360 lacked uh inner maagory. And you might think, like, how 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:03.240 can you write a story if you can't picture a 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.720 scene in your head? But they did, And in fact, 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.280 you might imagine how some people who don't picture scenes 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.040 in their head could have other ways of organizing information 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.840 in their brains that actually could lend themselves very well 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.640 to crafting narration. Yeah, yeah, I could see where it 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.920 would be a strength in some cases, because I feel 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.880 like in my own writing, oftentimes I'll have to such 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.960 a crystal clear image in my head of what a scene, 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:31.000 should you know, look like in the mind's eye, and 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:36.120 I'm chasing that and it's an exercise of chasing that 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:40.280 mental image and making the paper replicated. And if I 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.040 were not chasing that specific image, then then it would 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.360 be a different exercise, but perhaps one that is more 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.120 in line with reaching the reader. Yeah. If you start 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:51.960 with the visual image of a scene and then you 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.960 try to put that visual image into writing for the reader, 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.480 your writing is actually a second generation copy of what 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:00.720 you've imagined. It's like a vh AS copy of a 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.320 copy or not a copy of a copy of the original. 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.000 But the person who has a fantasiation and imagines a 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.480 scene in words to begin with, the reader is actually 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:14.320 getting the original copy of the imagination. Yeah, it really 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.680 turns everything on its head. Yeah. No. One more thing 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:18.840 I want to mention before we move on to the 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.640 next email is that, obviously Lindsay is expressing what a 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:26.080 lot of people express, which is uncertainty. Right, do I 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:29.240 meet the criteria for having face blindness? And do do 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.600 I really have face blindness? Or am I just sort 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.280 of at the lower end of the normal spectrum for 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:39.440 recognizing faces. Obviously, we're not psychiatrists or neurologists. We can't 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.320 diagnose you for you, but there are tests that you 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:45.800 can just take on the internet that give you some 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.840 indication of whether you might have a clinical case of 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.720 face blindness now or Again. Absolutely not suggesting that you 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.000 come to a conclusion about this just based on a 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:57.920 test on the internet. You should talk to a medical professional. 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.880 You should see a psychiatrist or neurologist. But I think 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.000 these tests can at least give you a better starting 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.960 place for considering whether it's worth bringing up. One example 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:12.760 would be the twenty item Prosopagnosia Index, which is by Shaw, Gall, Sodan, Bird, 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.360 and Cook. It was published on a domain called Trouble 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.200 with Faces dot org, and you can look this up 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.720 if you want, the twenty item Prosopagnosia Index, and it 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.319 includes questions like the following. Do you find it noticeably 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.840 easier to recognize people who have distinctive facial features? This 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.640 came up in the last episode, you know, the distinctive 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.400 mustache or the mole or something like that. Do you 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.440 often mistake people you've met for strangers when people change 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:44.320 their hairstyle or wear hats. Do you have problems recognizing 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:49.760 them without hearing people's voices? Do you struggle to recognize them? 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.440 Do you have anxiety about face recognition that has led 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.400 you to avoid certain social or professional situations? Here's a 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.719 key one we've seen reported a lot. Do you ever 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:05.079 find it hard to follow movies because of difficulties recognizing characters? 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.640 Is it hard to recognize familiar people when you meet 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.680 them out of context? For example, meeting a work colleague 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.000 while shopping and then another really interesting one, is it 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.000 sometimes hard to recognize yourself in a photograph? Yeah, I 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.559 think those are. That's a great starting place for some 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:26.520 degree of self diagnosis, um be, because if you're like me, 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:28.560 you probably match up with at least one or two 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.079 of those things. You can say, oh yeah, when I 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:32.800 encounter people out of context, if I don't know them 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.240 very well and they just completely blank on who they are, 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.840 I wonder to what extent you can have maybe not 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:43.760 a clinical case of face blindness, but but have face 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:49.800 recognition expertise significantly increase or decrease throughout life. Because I 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.880 feel like I can look at items on this list 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.480 and think these used to be much more true of 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.840 me than they are today. I remember when I was younger, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.440 like when I was a kid, I would sometimes watch 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.760 movies and have a lot of trouble following who the 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.560 characters were. I'd get people mixed up, not be able 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.080 to recognize people from one scene to another. And for 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.280 some reason, as I got older, that stopped being a problem. 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:17.439 But I wonder, I wonder how that would have Do 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.080 you think that might have occurred just through obsession? Through 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.439 because I have session with movies? Yeah, Because I feel 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.360 like like like like you and I have this in 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:31.120 common where we we we probably devote far too much 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:36.560 a space in our minds to cataloging character actors in 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.440 in uh in B movies. Um, but you know that's 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:44.119 not something that just occurred overnight. Like that is the 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.720 accumulation of years upon years of you know, wasting our 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:52.000 time on intermittent movie database and seeing these films. Yeah, 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:53.640 I mean, I feel like it's the case even for 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.160 unfamiliar actors. But I don't know that is a good question. 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.600 I again, I'm I'm not suggesting that any point I 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:05.199 had anything like a diagnosable case of face blindness, because 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.680 a lot of these other criteria don't ring true to 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:09.760 me at all. But I remember it being the case 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.120 in movies in the past for me, and not the 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.120 case anymore. So. One takeaway from that is, even though 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.839 you shouldn't diagnose yourself on an internet test alone without 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.080 seeing a medical professional, you definitely shouldn't diagnose yourself just 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.360 based on the answer to one question. All right, here's 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:29.080 one for us. This comes to us from Theodore. Hey, guys, 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.960 I saw today's episode and knew it was gonna be awesome. 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.640 I have a mild sort of face blindness that works 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.320 in some weird ways. I was actually surprised to you 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.960 guys didn't reference your episode on the Theater of the Mind. 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.000 That would be the A Fantasia episode um more, because 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.240 I have always felt my own version of face blindness 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.160 is very similar to that. When I see people I know, 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.320 I actually do not struggle to recognize them too much, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:57.560 but my ability to picture people's faces is what is impaired. Strangely, 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.360 I have also noticed that I have an inverse relaationship 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.680 between how well I know someone and how well I 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.880 can picture their face. For example, Robert, I have seen 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.920 you in some YouTube videos and online. Your face I 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.920 can pull up fairly easily. However, my mother, who I 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.600 have known my whole life, I really struggle to picture 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.960 her face. That's interesting. I work as a parker coach 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.240 and personal trainer in my career. The face blindness has 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.040 I think actually helped me. Since I do not naturally 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.680 use facial clues as much, I have developed a natural 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.160 affinity to pick up on people's body movements. This makes 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.760 recognizing various movement patterns very easy. I can identify a 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:38.720 person by their collapsed arch long before their nose shape. 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.040 I have never experienced the problems of spatial awareness, you 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.640 guys that also mentioned I have always had a pretty 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.800 good sense of direction. Training Parker for seven years has 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.320 only enhanced that I can look at a space for 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.320 a few minutes and later recall it in exacting detail. 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.520 Thanks for another great episode THEO. Now, as we talked 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:01.160 about originally, these associated condition such as like having a 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:06.400 difficulty with identifying geographical locations or spatial topography, that's not 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.320 always associated with face blindness, but it does seem to 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:13.720 be somewhat covariant, you know. And I also can't help 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.920 but wonder about the difference between saying, say, seeing my 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.880 face online for seeing his mother, mother's face, like the 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:26.720 face of one's mother or another close family member. Is like, 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.200 there's just so much more data there, so much more 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.640 situational data, uh changing data over time. Is that individual 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.040 ages and goes through various uh you know styles even 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.640 but for like the host of a podcast, like, how 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.160 much visual data is there? Really? And it's there and 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.640 it's limited. It's not personal data. It's what a few 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.680 varying headshots over the course of a decade, a few 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.840 videos you've caught here and there with very similar lighting. 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.000 So it doesn't sound that surprising to me. I mean, 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.680 I must say I'm surprised by it is really interesting. Um, 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.680 I see what you're saying, though, Like you might have 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.720 an easier time picturing something that there is a more 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:15.000 uniquely identifiable source for if you've just seen it once, 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.840 then something that you've got a lot of data you're 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:19.800 trying to average. Though that sounds like that would not 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.240 fall under like normal face processing. That does sound unusual 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.919 to me. But I wonder if there is a distinctive 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.840 difference between essentially remembering a photo of a person and 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:34.320 remembering that person's face, you know, because because like when 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.560 I when I think back on say, people I've known 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.040 that that have passed on, um, you know, I can 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.800 recall their face pretty clearly, But I I second guess 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.639 myself more sometimes about the details, uh, as opposed to 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:52.800 say a picture, say a famous Hollywood actor from you know, 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.520 the ninety forties or something I can picture. I can 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.159 picture Clark Gable like that, and I really don't have 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.200 any difficult culty in bringing to mind, at least the 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.520 most prominent headshot of Clark Gable in my mind. But 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.280 would you recognize Clark Gable without a mustache? I might not, 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.480 that's the thing, But I but that, Yeah, I just 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.159 have so much there's just so much less data than 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:18.200 I'm calling upon. I'm basically remembering probably I'm probably remembering 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.440 his IMDb or Wicked profile picture. You know. Yeah, it 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.680 does make you wonder if they're actually different sort of 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:29.000 subsets of categorization pathways within the brain for different classes 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:33.280 of faces. Do do we class famous faces any different 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:37.720 than we class personally familiar faces? Do those operate differently 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.560 or do we use the same architecture for both? Take 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:44.600 Michael Fassbinder for instance. Alright, always an interesting face to 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.320 look at, always a joy to watch him act, or 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:52.280 an agony, depending on the part. But he rarely looks 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:53.879 me in the eyes. And when he does look me 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.600 in the eye, when he does look at the camera, uh, 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.680 I know that I am looking at essentially an object. 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.679 He cannot he cannot view me back. There's no social 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.600 exchange there. Not just because he's playing a robot. Not 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:08.960 just because he's playing a robot and it's maybe a 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.560 pie zombie, but no, but because I mean, obviously this 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:14.800 is an overstatement of the obvious, but he cannot see me. 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:17.239 This is not I am. I am observing him as 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:21.080 a voyeur. This is only tangentially related to the subject. 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.240 But it does make me think of a study on 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:27.480 the Thatcher illusion. Uh So, Robert I included some images 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:29.840 here of this wonderful thing. If you never heard about 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.280 the Thatcher illusion before, you can't just listen to us 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.720 describe it. You have to, whenever you get the opportunity, 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.720 go and look up what this looks like. The Thatcher 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.159 illusion is this principle first detective by Thompson in nineteen 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:45.080 eighty and it's defined by the authors of a studio 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.600 and I mentioned just briefly and plos one from sixteen 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.200 by Huts and Carbon, And it's defined by these authors 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.760 as the case where quote participants instantly perceive an upright 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.879 face with inverted eyes and mouth as gre task, but 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.280 fail to do so when the face is inverted. So 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:06.800 if you take a normal face you flip the eyes 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.840 and the mouth upside down on it. It is incredibly revolting. 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.560 And that we're not just talking about the eyeballs themselves, 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.359 but this also involves the eyebrows and the eyelashes. Yeah, 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:20.480 but if you do the exact same So if you 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:22.960 turn a do the exact same thing, but with the 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.560 face upside down. So you turn the face upside down 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:29.720 and then again rotate the eyes and the mouth upside 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.280 down relative to the face. You can't tell any difference 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.760 between that and a normal face, So they look almost 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.479 exactly the same unless you really study hard. Yeah, if 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.200 you're just if you're just inverting the the eyes and 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.640 the mouth, the character looks like a demon. Otherwise you're 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:47.760 just like, oh yeah, now that same faces upside down. 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:49.760 You have to really look at it to notice that 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:53.160 there's something altered altered there. But this study in particular 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.479 was trying to see how does this work with familiar faces, 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.359 And the example they used was famous faces, because you 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:01.880 can general account on people to be familiar with very 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:05.560 famous faces. But they were trying to see if familiarity 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:07.720 with faces might play a role in the speed of 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.159 processing these types of images, and they found what they 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:14.040 were looking for did not hold. Participants in this study 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:19.159 were not any faster at processing grotesque inverted eyes and 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.560 mouth on famous faces, though the authors say it might 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:26.400 have been different if they'd used personally familiar faces rather 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:28.720 than famous faces. They acknowledge that that could be a 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.000 flaw in their their study design. But at the same time, 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:36.120 while not faster, participants were more accurate quote in deciding 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.080 if famous faces were grotesque or not when they were inverted, 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.200 probably due to better knowledge of what the people look 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.840 like when presented normally. And in interpreting this, they say 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.159 quote altogether, famous faces seemed to be processed in a 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:53.119 more elaborate, more expertise based way than non famous faces, 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:57.159 whereas non famous inverted faces seemed to cause difficulties in 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.399 accurate and sensitive processing. And that's in listening to me 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.440