WEBVTT - How Face Blindness Works 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:11.360 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:13.840 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.120 and Jerry's here too, sitting in in this bowl session 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:20.720 that we like to call stuff you Should Know to 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.680 shooting the bullets, shooting the breeze. That's right, chewing the fact, 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:29.320 sling in some facts, m slinging some facts about something 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:34.760 that is just downright astounding if you ask me, Chuck, Yeah, 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:38.600 when have we talked about this? Oh, buddy, we talked 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.440 about it, and I think the Doppelganger episode. I feel 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.680 like also in the days of YR we maybe hit 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:54.000 it at some point briefly. Sure, probably can you transplant ahead? No, jeez, kids, 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:56.160 digging deep. I don't know if it was in that 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.560 one or not, could have been, but yeah, we've definitely 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:03.840 talked about it. We should say prosopagnosia, which is face 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:08.080 blindness more commonly known, which is a neurological condition, to 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.160 just kind of dryly define it right out of the gate, 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:15.960 Uh yeah, and what we're not talking about, although as 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:18.360 you'll see, it is a condition that does exist on 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.559 a spectrum. But I think they're but they're saying basically though, 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.160 it's not just like I'm not real, real good at 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:30.080 remembering people's faces. While that can also mean you might 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:34.679 have a very low on the spectrum version of prosopagnosia, 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.440 it's it's not generally what most people when they say like, 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.280 I'm not good with faces, probably don't have it. It's 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:43.839 a very clunky way of saying that. It's pretty rare 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.480 and like it doesn't necessarily just have to do with 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.200 how good you are remembering people when you meet them. 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:53.720 That just means you're an a hole, right, which is 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.040 said because a lot of people with prosopagnosia get kind 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.640 of thought of as that because people don't really understand 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.160 what their condition is. Yeah, it's not yeah, supposedly he's 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:09.079 self diagnosed. I guess yeah, he's has not been fully diagnosed, 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.200 but he does. Just from reading like recent interviews with him, 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.720 it seems like it's probably the deal with him and 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.680 not just like, hey, I'm busy, but he's you know, 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.760 as you'll see, it's a real struggle. It's not just like, oh, 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.360 I'm not very good with faces. It's you know, you 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.079 may not recognize your family members. If it's severe enough, 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.080 you may not recognize your own face. Yeah, and more more, 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:32.720 you know, like kind of in a day to day thing. 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.000 I saw it described by I believe it was m. 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:42.799 Sadie Dingfelder, who is a Washington Post writer and also 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.520 has severe face blindness. She said, I believe it's her. 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.600 Said basically, like you can spend like all day in 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.959 a meeting like a boardroom with somebody, like working closely 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:58.320 with them the whole time, and then at the end 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.360 of the day, if you both happened to ump into 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.800 each other in the lobby after you know, leaving one 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.000 another side five minutes before, she would not she would 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:12.000 not recognize that person. Yeah, I mean I will say 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.960 that I have. It's not a superpower, but I've always 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.680 been really, really, really good at remembering faces. There's something 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.880 called super recognizers. I think I might be on that 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:24.880 if that exists on a spectrum, I think I'm on 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:30.040 it because I've had some freakishly weird occurrences of remembering 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:33.760 faces of people I didn't know at all from years before. 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.360 Like even as a kid, I remember like seeing a 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.160 guy at six Flags one time and then seeing him 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.640 like a couple of years later, and I think maybe 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.000 I met him, and then somehow got confirmation it wasn't 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.120 just me thinking, you know, like it wasn't a mistake, 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.360 Like I've always been really good at recognizing faces, is 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.240 what I'm saying. You were like, is it him? And 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:56.760 then all of a sudden he puts on a jean 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.200 jacket with the iHeart six flags patch on the back. 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:02.760 It is Let's say it may have been something like 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.800 that because the clothes, you'll see the clothes and things 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.920 can be a way to help you remember people for sure. So, 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.040 like you said, the whole thing kind of exists in degrees, 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.160 and a lot of people think that, you know, if 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.159 you have face blindness blindness, which is weird that I 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.280 have trouble saying face blindness too, because the clinical name 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:29.159 is really difficult to say. If you have face blindness, 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.839 that if somebody knows that it exists and they have 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:34.920 kind of a general conception of it, they might think that, 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.600 like you don't see faces, like it's that really creepy 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.080 Twilight zone thing where this sister was missing her mouth, 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.160 you know, or everyone looks like Robert the Doll. Yeah, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.960 kind of like that, like but without even eyes or 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.200 a nose, like just a blur or something like that. 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:54.359 And apparently there is such a degree of it that 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.840 if you saw like a picture of a face maybe 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.200 out of context, like you didn't see it attach to 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.800 somebody's body or whatever, you would think maybe it was 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.839 a rock or just some other roundish object. That there 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.880 is like that degree. Apparently that's pretty rare. What's more 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.440 likely is that you're seeing all the different parts of 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.960 the face. Your brain's just not putting it together in 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:23.960 a cohesive hole like everybody else's brain does. That's that's 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.440 one big part of it for sure. Yeah, And I 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:28.320 think what we're going to do the order we settled 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:29.680 on is we're going to kind of talk a lot 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:32.320 about it and then maybe toward the end we're going 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.000 to talk about causes and whether or not it can 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.200 be fixed and stuff like that. So if that's a cliffhanger, 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.760 then there you go, Right, does that count? It? Is? 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.200 It does? There's one other thing we need to point out. 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:50.640 There's absolutely nothing wrong with people with prosopagnosias like site. 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.520 They can see perfectly fine, right, It's that the sensory 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.120 information that's coming in is not being processed correctly. Right. 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:03.640 That's just called far sightedness. Yeah, myopia. Yeah, mister McGoo. 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:05.640 Should we talk about, now, you know what else? The 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.760 deal with Magoo? He couldn't see very well. They always 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.080 joked about this on the podcast Freedom of whether or 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:17.960 not Magoo had glasses? Uh man, No, they think about it. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.400 I'm not sure if he had glasses. Whatever the answer is, 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.839 I can't remember. The opposite is kind of what people 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.440 commonly think. I think he doesn't have classes. Yeah, so 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.000 people when they see people with really thick glasses would 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.839 say like, oh, real Magoo, when in fact people with 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.080 no glasses hurt the magoose. Does that make sense? Yeah, 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:38.560 it does. It's kind of like misusing loman on the 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.600 totem pole or drink the coolie exactly. You know. All right, 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:46.760 So should we talk about agnosias in general? Yeah, because 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:51.680 prosopagnosia is a specific kind of a mental disorder that 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.479 belongs to like a general class of disorders, neurological disorders 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.680 called agnosias, And they are about as fascinating as it 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.200 can get. They also reveal a tremendous amount of how 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.480 our brain works too. Yeah, and it's a Greek if 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:10.880 you're wondering, basically means absence of knowledge, but medically speaking, 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.400 it means you have some sort of recognition impairment, and 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.400 it is you know, And we'll go through these. They're 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:21.080 very specific. Ed helped us put this together. And the 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.560 reason it's so specific, I think, is because it has 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.600 to be, because there are some minute differences in some 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.560 of these that make a difference, you know, yeah, for sure, 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:34.040 make a big difference. All right, So I guess we'll 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:38.560 start with the three main categories. Color blindness, which we've 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:43.120 talked about before, is a version of an agnosia, word blindness, 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.320 which I guess you have with reading the words face blindness, 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.600 and what we're talking about today prosopagnosia. But those aren't 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.520 the three categories. Those are three types of visual. The 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.800 three main categories are visual, auditory, in touch right right right, 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.160 visual seems to have the most associated with it. In 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.480 addition to all those other ones you just mentioned, there's 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.960 one called apperceptive, which is where you can't differentiate objects, 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.440 just like a person can't differentiate a face with prosopagnosia. 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:18.960 Like a person with apperceptive visual agnosia, like you can 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.120 say say, hey, look at that car, and look at 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.560 that toaster over there aren't they really nice to look at, 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:26.600 And they'd be like, I don't really see any difference 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.720 between those two things that you're pointing out now, And 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:31.720 I have questions about this. You may not know the 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.000 answer too, about why a toaster is out on a 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:38.680 street with a car. That's it. No, it's And to 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.080 be fair, toaster and car were probably not great examples 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.920 to use because you take into consideration, as you'll see, 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.400 if you have any of these disorders, you know the 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:49.480 fact that it's on the street, in a driveway, or 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.440 on a counter in a kitchen. Sure, But what I 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.920 want to know is is do they do they even 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:00.440 note like the size of something? I don't know. Some 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.679 of these are so exotic that there's like just a 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:08.800 handful of cases in the entire history of medicine. I 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.720 think a perceptive is a little more common, but I 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.000 don't know exactly how they see it, because like a 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.200 pair of glasses on a coffee table or a remote 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.520 control like that kind of thing makes a little more sense. 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.720 Car and toaster blows my mind. Okay, So I'm just 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.680 gonna go ahead and confess car and toaster was my example. 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:30.960 I'm just trying to get the point across. Okay, I 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:35.480 just wonder if if it is that severe. I'm sure 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:37.800 it can be, especially if allow this exists on a spectrum. 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:39.480 If there's people out there who can look at a 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:41.760 picture of a face and think it's a rock, I'm 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.640 sure there's somebody out there who has a perceptive visual 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:48.600 agnosia that says that toaster in that car, same thing, buddy. 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.600 All right, all right, fair enough, I'm putting money on 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.160 it now. And you know what we're hoping to do 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.360 is hear from some people, because this is really fascinating. 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.600 Like you said, there's not a ton of as we'll see, 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.040 a lot of people don't come forward because they learn 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.920 to deal with it. You're right, totally. So. Associative is 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:14.120 another visual one that's an inability to identify objects whereas 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.040 you can, like you can see the coffee cup, you 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.640 can reach out and grab it, but you can't identify 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.000 its use, like I'm holding the thing, but I don't 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.439 know what the heck you do with it, right exactly. 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:25.960 And then there's another one that sounds man, I think 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:30.319 this deserves its own short stuff akin autopsia, and it's 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.920 where you can't perceive motion. Yeah, so I saw it 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.720 described as like if a car's coming at you. It 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.560 just is like a series of like it suddenly jumps 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.200 closer and closer and closer. You don't see it moving. 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.000 It's like a series of still images. All of life 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:47.240 is like that. Like how if you see somebody like 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.760 moving towards you under a strobe light. That's what it's like, 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.560 but no need for the strobe light. So it's like 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.520 a murder scene in a club in a movie exactly. 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.240 That's exactly what life is like for people with can't 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.240 atop to you, Wow, you have your auditory ones. Auditory 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.320 verbal is when you can't recognize a word that you hear. 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:11.080 They also call it word deafness for obvious reasons. And 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:16.000 then also under auditory is oh I had all these earlier. 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:20.720 How do you do you pronounce that G? There? I 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.640 think it's phone agnosia, phone agnosia. Okay, that makes sense. 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.360 I think that is not being able to recognize familiar 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.280 voice and identify that voice right, understand everything they're saying. 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.520 But I would be on this recording right now, as 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.960 and often the case, wondering who is this guy? Right? 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.400 It's kind of like the auditory version of prosopagnosia, right 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.800 with voices instead of faces. There's another one that's called 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:50.480 tactile agnosia, and it's where you can't recognize an object 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.320 by touch. And I've really thought about this, and the 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.240 best I could come up with is that this would 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.120 be problematic at one of those Halloween parties where they 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.400 pass around a bowl of spaghetti and tell you it's guts. 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:02.560 It just be lost on you. But that's about the 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.960 worst that could come of it from what I can tell. Okay, 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.600 because you can still use the thing and recognize what 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.480 it's used for. In't that right? I think? So it's 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.120 just when you touch it you don't know what it is. 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.160 So I'm sure like going to turn off the oven 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.000 would be really problematic or something like that. But um, yeah, 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.600 it's it's that's It just seems like such a limited thing. 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:26.600 But I'm sure there's much more problems with it than 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:28.760 I can come up with. If you want to get 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:34.520 even rarer, here are some more versions of agnosia's auto autotopagnosia, 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:39.120 which is when you can't recognize and identify specific body 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:43.360 parts of your of your own body. Oh, there's also 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:48.040 my favorite Simultan tang Agnosia, Simultan Agnosia. Yeah, I think 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.960 that's it. You got it. Okay. So that one is 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.080 where you can see all sorts of different stuff, all 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:55.520 the objects, you can identify all the objects in your 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.360 field of viewer in a picture or something. But what 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.440 they're doing together, that worms of cohesive whole a scene 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.439 is just totally lost on you. You would see a 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.679 kid in their pajamas opening a present. There would be 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:12.120 a tree that's decorated. There would be like a couple 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.960 of parents like watching the kid or standing off to 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.280 the side. You would not put together that this is 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.240 a scene of like a Christmas morning, Like you just 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.800 you just can't put scenes together. And I saw it 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:25.880 compared to not being able to see the forest from 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.360 the trees. Okay, that makes sense, Yeah it does. That's 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.240 my favorite one right there. Yeah, all these are so tough, 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:36.480 and it's not I think it's something that's easy for 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.720 people to laugh at, Like if someone said, like, why 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.320 is there a tree in that living room? Right, It's 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:43.840 it's not funny, you know, and especially when it comes 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.240 to the main topic of face blindness, it can be 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.280 a very debilitating thing. It can be for sure, but 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:55.720 astoundingly humans who have these conditions are really good at 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.040 figuring out ways to kind of make it through life, 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.720 just kind of worker out and essentially um and we'll 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:04.960 talk more about that. I say, after a break, how 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.400 about that, let's do it. I want to learn about 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.880 a terroristort and college dactyl, how to take a perfect moment, 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:12.800 all about fractolki is gone, that's another hun, the Lizzie 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:14.720 Border murders that I have, all runs on the plane, 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:32.920 everything Stubby should know. Word up, Jerry, Okay, Chuck, Now, 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.200 I don't feel at all comfortable making any jokes about 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.880 this stuff. You really threw the gauntlet down. Is there 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:41.920 a tree in your living room, Josh? That's not funny 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.920 covered with lights? It's Halloween. It's not funny. Uh, it 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:52.000 is not funny. It's a little funny, isn't it. I 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:56.160 think that one specifically to not recognize a scene. All right. 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.400 I think you can get a yuck or two out 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:03.160 of that. Okay, Okay, let's move on. Okay. So I 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.440 was saying before the break that people with agnosias, and 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.880 in particular prosopagnosia, learn to just kind of navigate through 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.880 life without the advantages that the rest of us just 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.800 totally take for granted and say, I say, the best 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.760 way to understand prosopagnosia, I just sounded like foghorn leghorn 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.320 for a second. I'll say the best way is to 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:32.240 understand how just people normally perceive faces. Right. Yeah, So 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.680 this is something that you know when you're grown up 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.440 or whatever. You you just sort of again, you take 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.240 it for granted that this is something that you've always 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.840 been able to do, but it's actually a learned process. 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:46.000 You develop this over the course of your life. I 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.680 think they say, you know, and it kind of makes sense, 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.480 like sort of in your prepubescent years around twelve, you're 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.520 really spongy at that age at soaking up faces and 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.840 getting better, and it just gets better in time. I 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.320 think we peek in our third ease. And this also 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:03.640 makes a lot of sense. If you grow up in 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.480 a city, you're better if you're exposed to, you know, 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:08.600 a lot of faces than someone who might grow up 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.800 in a small town seeing the same people over and over. Yeah, 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.120 And so the whole thing of recognizing a face, we've 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:16.160 figured out, and by we I mean you and me, Chuck, 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.320 is that it's a two step process, and one is 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:24.240 that that visual information comes in and it gets processed 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.640 into a hole. So like we see faces as holes 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:32.320 generally most most people do. And a person's face when 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.880 we're taking it in, it's not necessarily whole. We're putting 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:39.600 all of these pieces together automatically instantly. It's called holistic processing. 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:41.560 So you've got a face now in your head, and 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.000 then you run it against a database essentially to find 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:46.960 out if it's familiar or not, and all this is 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:52.680 taking like microseconds to do. Yeah, and then if it 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.160 comes up like, yes, this is familiar, then you have 0:16:55.240 --> 0:17:00.640 what's called recollection memory. I believe if I recall correctly, 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:06.240 and that is this biographical information that we attached to 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.720 each person. They've figured out that it seems like that 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.119 is attached to the face, and that that's when you 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.880 recognize somebody. If you stop and think about it, you're like, oh, yeah, 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.040 I'm just inundated with this flood of information about that 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.200 person that I know. It's they are figuring out it's 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.439 triggered by the face. So they they're finding out that 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:30.280 prosopagnosia patients not only can't recognize faces, they can't retain 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:35.200 the biographical information that other people can because it seems 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:38.960 to be filed away by a person's face. Yeah, and 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.120 like you said, you pull up that file and in 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.040 your mind, what's happening so so fast is you know, 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.639 crooked nose, cheek scar. I went to high school with 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.440 that guy. It's Ralph. I saw that guy it's six 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:55.679 flags once. It'd be funny if actually went to my 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.879 high school. That's where I knew him. But Ralph. So 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:01.040 let's say, let's take the example of Ralph. You know 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.320 that Ralph likes long walks on the beach, that Ralph 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.960 doesn't like cockroaches, he's scared of them. You know that 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:09.560 Ralph has a really cool car that you like to 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.640 ride in sometimes, like you just know this stuff, like 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.640 you just know it, and it's part of it's part 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.280 of recognition. And again that's triggered by a face. So 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.400 people who have pazzo pagnosia have to kind of make 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.159 it through the world without that. And so for you 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:33.800 and me and people who can easily recognize faces, it's 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.359 it's really hard to imagine not being able to do that. 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.879 But it came up with a really good thought experiment. 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.679 I think is the sea apples? Are we there? I 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:44.520 think so? Sure. Yeah. I mean this is kind of 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:49.639 like a Memento, you know, the dude and Memento came 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.720 up with a system, and it's all about developing a 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.880 system that works. So when you see Ralph, you think 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.320 you've learned crooked nose, cheek, scar on the left face. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.600 I know that's my friend, but there's still not that recognition, 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.040 which I can't imagine how frustrating that must be. But 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.000 in this case, if you're talking about like apples, you 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.280 show someone an apple and then you put that apple 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.840 on a coffee table with like forty apple buddies, and 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.959 then you say, pick up that apple, and it's you know, 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.600 you'd be lost, to be very frustrating, But if you 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.600 were told to do this several times or you know, 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.760 given years or whatever, you would eventually develop a system 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.720 to memorizing how to recognize that apple, which could be 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.040 the most minute little features of the apple, from the 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.560 length of the stem to the dent in the top 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.120 corner that you don't want to eat. Yeah, and if 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.080 your entire social life, and in some cases your own 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:50.440 survival was predicated I'm being able to recognize individual apples, 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:52.919 you would figure out a way to do that. And 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:57.880 so if you just replace identifying individual apples with identifying faces, 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.679 that's what people with pazo pagnosia have to learn how 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:02.520 to do, and they do it, like you said. And 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.639 it turns out that if you, um kind of study 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:10.680 how prosopagnosiacs real world from I've seen it a ton 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.760 of places, including people who know what they're talking about. Yeah, um, 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:16.800 that you'll find that there are a bunch of little 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.919 cues and mannerisms and things that that we have that 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:23.439 we're not aware of that really make us individuals beyond 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:27.560 just what our faces look like. Yeah, because we're literally 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.359 just talking the face. So if your friend has a 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.320 purple mohawk, then use that like like that's a you 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.280 want all your friends to have weird hair. You know, 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.920 you grab onto that with all your might. That's right. 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.119 Don't let go with the of that mohawk. Uh you 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:44.560 you know, you can still see the eyes and recognize 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.320 like eye color or like I said, you know, if 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:49.919 your friend has like you know, broke their nose or 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:51.800 they have a scar on their face or things like that, 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.440 or how big their ears are or how they walk, 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.720 or what they their mannerisms. Mannerisms are huge or yeah, 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:03.440 obviously things like tattoos or if they have stinky armpits, 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.119 or like there's sure, there's a lot of ways you 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.159 gotta get that one right or that could be very embarrassing. 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:13.440 But there are a lot of things that we don't 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.159 need to use but are still in our own memory banks. 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:20.199 If you don't have prosopagnosia, but just filter out the 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.000 face and those are what everyone else with prosopagnosia is using. Right. 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:27.479 There's also a lot of reliance on friends and family 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:29.720 to be like, oh, here comes Ralph. Remember you like 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.040 his car, right, and you'd be like, Ralph, good to 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:36.320 see you. Friend. Can I ride in your car? And 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:38.840 Ralph and say, sure, I appreciate you recognizing me. Of 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.520 course you can ride in my car. The problem is 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.879 you're not always around your friends and family. Some people 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.200 are single and don't live in the same town as 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:50.399 their family. Some people's family don't like them. There's all 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.280 sorts of reasons that you might not be able to 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.400 rely on prompts all the time, And there's also problems 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.560 with the strategy of using all sorts of little details 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.880 to identify people too, because people change their hair color 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.080 exactly once you enter that business world. That purple mohawks 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.960 probably gone, right, Yeah, people change their hair color, people 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.960 change their clothes. It can be really difficult to keep 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:18.560 up with that stuff. And so there's other potentially better 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.320 ways of identifying people. And it seems to have to 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:26.760 do with basically teaching yourself to memorize the people who 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:29.359 are important in your life. Like you would choose a 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:31.119 select group of people and be like, these are the 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:33.840 people I really need to recognize, and you would get 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.720 to studying them, like photographs of them at length, yeah, 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.119 and which you know that's can also be a little 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:43.080 tricky because let's say you have a friend with Prizo 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:45.840 Pagnosia and you know that this is their strategy, and 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:48.960 they still don't remember you, and you're like, oh, okay, 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:51.320 I didn't make that list of extra study that's right. 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:55.200