Face Blindness Community Group
Face blindness is a rare disability that effects the quality of life for the sufferers. People who are face blind do not have the ability to distiguish differences in peoples faces. It helps to understand by considering color blind people. Color blind people DO see color. But they have trouble distinguishing between colors. Similarly, Face blind people will have trouble...
I have taken a few tests on line that claim to be able to tell if you are face blind. Although my results said that I did have some problems with face blindness, I was troubled by the test method and outcome.
In real life, people come in and out of your field of vision along with other stimuli that constantly comes and goes and changes. A person cannot give FULL attention to trying to identify each face that is viewed. Also, real human faces are constantly in motion. And the person you are trying to indentify may have mannerisms, hair color, voice tone (etc..) that may remind you of another person. A face blind person will be dealing with all of this input at once and will likely not be trying super hard to even remember someone who is just a passing person at the mall or similar.
So, my point is, I don't think that tests that shows photos of random people can give an (anywhere near) accurate view of how bad a persons faceblindness is. In my life I have had a lot of problems due to my faceblindness. It has caused a lot of hardship for me, so I know that the problem is a fact. The on-line tests ocassionally show a photo twice to see if you know that you have seen it before. For me I often could tell that it was a repeat photo. Not because I recognized the face but because I am very observant and noticed an exact same hairstyle or some detail in the photo.
People who are face blind have often trained themselves to be extra observant. We need all the help we can get! So I really think the on-line tests should be completely disregarded. I don't think they help someone who is truely in need of diagnosis.
What do you think?
In real life, people come in and out of your field of vision along with other stimuli that constantly comes and goes and changes. A person cannot give FULL attention to trying to identify each face that is viewed. Also, real human faces are constantly in motion. And the person you are trying to indentify may have mannerisms, hair color, voice tone (etc..) that may remind you of another person. A face blind person will be dealing with all of this input at once and will likely not be trying super hard to even remember someone who is just a passing person at the mall or similar.
So, my point is, I don't think that tests that shows photos of random people can give an (anywhere near) accurate view of how bad a persons faceblindness is. In my life I have had a lot of problems due to my faceblindness. It has caused a lot of hardship for me, so I know that the problem is a fact. The on-line tests ocassionally show a photo twice to see if you know that you have seen it before. For me I often could tell that it was a repeat photo. Not because I recognized the face but because I am very observant and noticed an exact same hairstyle or some detail in the photo.
People who are face blind have often trained themselves to be extra observant. We need all the help we can get! So I really think the on-line tests should be completely disregarded. I don't think they help someone who is truely in need of diagnosis.
What do you think?
Even so I scored 69 %, which is barely above the 65% they gave as the top level for someone with face blindness. What about the people between the 80% normal face recognition and the 65%?
Glad you agree!! :)