[ Note : A few years ago , I was
watching a medical documentary at CNN. A doctor was showing pictures of famous
people to a man ( an American ). The man was asked to identify the people in
the pictures. When the man was shown a picture of Elvis Presley , he said “
That’s Brooke Shields.” That hit me ! How can somebody mistake Elvis
Presley for Brooke Shields ? The two
artists were shown in their typical Hollywood appearance : Elvis , white male with short very dark hair and
Brooke, white female with long blonde hair. He can’t tell a man from a woman ?
That moment spurred in me an interest in PROSOPAGNOSIA , the ailment that
plagued that man in the documentary. I’ve been reading and researching about it for some time .The essay below is a condensed result. Let me caution you . I AM NOT A DOCTOR
. I AM NOT AN EXPERT ON THE TOPIC. But my research has afforded me SOME
KNOWLEDGE about it. ]
Unmasking
Faceblindness
What if you woke up one morning , found yourself in a strange place, surrounded by strange people? Then they
start calling you “ Honey ” or “ Dad “ or “ Uncle John ”. In sheer confusion , you retreat to the bathroom . Then , you
look at the mirror and to your horror , you can not recognize the person in the reflection.
The above scenario may strike you as a
Hollywood thriller , but about two percent of the general population , or
about six to eight million people in the USA alone (Sacks, 2010), experience these bizarre
things on a daily basis . They are afflicted with a disease called prosopagnosia,
or faceblindness , a neurological condition in which a
person’s ability to recognize faces is impaired . It has nothing to do with poor eyesight or memory loss.
Cases
of the impairment have been recorded as early as the 19th century . However , it was only in 1947 when the term “prosopagnosia” was coined by a German
neurologist named Joachim Bodamer . He
compounded the Greek words
"prosopon" which means "face" and "agnosia" which means "not knowing". To many people , however , the word
“prosopagnosia ” is a linguistic abnormality that is impossible to
pronounce and spell. Due to the
suggestion of some prosopagnosics
themselves , the words “ face
blind ” and “face blindness” became readily accepted as layman’s term.
Prosopagnosics exhibit different levels and types of
impairment . Most of them can not
recognize the faces of people they know , including those who are close to or intimate with them . When a prosopagnosic looks at a familiar person’s face , say
a daughter or the wife , he can see the eyebrows , the eyes , the nose , the lips , the cheeks , the chin
--- but somewhere in the depths of his
mind –he can not figure out who that person is. The daughter’s face or
the wife’s face is just as unfamiliar to him as a stranger’s face.
Some can not recognize themselves in
recent photographs and in mirrors . A faceblind woman admits making extreme facial expressions in order to
recognize herself in the mirror of a public restroom . Others
reported having consistent difficulties in finding their way in familiar places.
Perhaps , the most complicated of all , is not
being able to tell the difference
between a face and an object. This
particular symptom became the basis for the title of Dr. Oliver Sacks’s book on faceblindness: “
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat”.
It is important to mention at this point
that Dr. Oliver Sacks himself is
faceblind . He is a well-known neurologist in the USA and a
respected professor at NYU School of Medicine. He is the author
of twelve books , which include “
Awakenings ” , a novel that was as made into a film starring Robin Williams and
Robert De Niro .
Prosopagnosics may also be unable to
perceive gender and age difference , no matter how great the age gap may be. One patient was shown a picture of Elvis Presley and was
asked to name him. The reply was “ Brooke
Shields ”. (Song ,2006 ) Another prosopagnosic
reported having
a very difficult time identifying her daughter in a hospital room where there was another patient . Her daughter was 19 years old. The other one was a very old woman , almost 100 years
old. And she could not tell which one
her daughter was.
There
are two main types of prosopagnosia .
Developmental prosopagnosia starts from infancy or childhood. Studies from
Germany in 2005 show that the disease
may have genetic causes. People with
developmental prosopagnosia usually grow into adulthood without realizing that they have the illness.
They grow up thinking that forgetting faces is normal and that other people experience the same
thing . But because awkward things happen to them and not to other people , they come to suspect that something is wrong with them but consistently fail to figure out , until the years plod
on , what exactly the problem is.
The other type is acquired
prosopagnosia which is caused by injury to the brain , stroke and
neuro-degenerative diseases. The
specific area of the brain that is said to be affected in prosopagnosia is the fusiform gyrus. People
who acquire the disorder later in life experience greater frustration and sense
of loss because they know how it is to be normal . They know the feeling, the
joy , of being able to recognize a loved
one’s face. Suddenly being deprived of that joy throws them into deeper
depression.
How the disease impacts the lives of
people
For
prosopagnosics , almost every social
interaction is a torture . Every simple misplaced
greeting, gesture ,introduction or in many cases , non-reaction , usually has unpleasant and awkward consequences . Bill Choisser, author of the online autobiographical book “ Face Blind !”( Choisser , 1997 ) reported having a serious conflict with his mother after failing to recognize her as they walked past each other on an almost empty street. Countless embarrassing incidents
are likely to happen : introducing the wrong person as your
husband or wife , or ignoring your boss
while he is inches away from you
in the elevator . Other incidents may have serious legal consequences : picking
up the wrong kid from school, failing to identify an assailant , or squeezing a
saleslady’s breast because you thought it’s a scarf or a fashion accessory.
The
impairment severely limits a person’s
career choices. Prosopagnosics can not be effective waiters or sales
staff. It is disastrous to give the
wrong food to the wrong people , or to give a pair of pink stilettos to a hefty hunk who is actually looking for steel-toed
boots. However , faceblind people can effectively work in
situations where they interact with a
small number of people : that is , THE
SAME PEOPLE in THE
SAME PLACE every day. For example , they
can be trained to be good at
computer-related jobs . With little
assistance from colleagues , they can also excel in media-
and arts -related careers like being a disc jockey , a radio announcer
or a researcher. Again, it must be noted that Dr. Sacks was able to build a successful career in medicine despite his
impairment.
Faceblind
people also find it hard to make , keep and maintain friendship. New
friends and acquaintances normally feel slighted when they are ignored by someone .
Unfortunately , a face blind person will, most of the time, ignore
people because he can’t recognize
them.
Even
recreational activities are adversely
affected by the impairment . Many prosopagnosics
can’t participate in friendly conversations
because they are not sure who they are responding to. They don’t enjoy movies because they can’t differentiate between
major and minor characters and this
results in inability to follow the plot.
To
avoid unpleasant consequences, many faceblind people just choose to withdraw from society and live like hermits .
How prosopagnosics deal with their impairment
Every
day is a battle for face blind people but they can cope. They have to cope to survive.
People
with prosopagnosia learn how to
compensate for their deficit through other means . They learn by studying other
ways of identifying people : voice , gait
, body type , scent and unique hair
style.
Faceblind
people also cope by making intelligent predictions through
location and context. For example
, that person in front of the class must
be Mrs. Sommers , the teacher. That boy holding a bundle of newspaper must be
Ben , the newspaper boy. The man at
the driver’s seat must be Mr. Woods , the bus driver.
To
avoid offending people , some prosopagnosics master the art of
pretension. They act extra nice , greet everybody cheerfully , pretend that
they know the person and bluff their way around
.
The Best Way
The
best way to cope with the ailment is through
an honest and frank confession. Prosopagnosics should tell friends , especially the new ones , that
they have a special condition called face blindness that prevents them from
recognizing people . One good technique to explain the ailment to normal people
is by comparing it color blindness. Color blind people can see colors but they can’t distinguish red from yellow , or blue from violet. Using
the analogy , face blind people can see
faces but they can’t distinguish one from the other . A face blind person can tell his friends : “ If we see each other and I ignore
you , it does not mean that I hate you.
It’s just my impairment . I can’t recognize faces. Don’t feel offended. So ,
please , the next time you see me , please greet me , mention my name and then mention your name. Then , I will know. ” Most normal people are sympathetic and make the
necessary adjustments when they are
properly informed .
Is there a cure for prosopagnosia ?
Prosopagnosia
is still an incurable disease.
Scientists are still trying to discover ways to prevent and to cure the
disease. The only concrete accomplishment is that patients are being taught effective compensatory skills (i.e. , identifying people
through voice , etc. ) to be able to
cope well with their surroundings. Compared with other illnesses that have been
uncovered in this world , prosopagnosia
has remained a mysterious , hooded
disease in the realms of science and of human existence .
Works Cited
Sacks,
O. (2010
August 30 ).
A Neurologist’s Notebook: Faceblind.
The New Yorker . 36.
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