Are you bad at remembering faces? You are not alone and what is happening to you has a name

What do they have in common Prince from Cinderella, Lois Lane and 3% of the populationn? prosopagnosia. It is very difficult to distinguish faces if, in order to recognize the woman with whom you danced all night, you need to try on a shoe. Or simple glasses that will serve as a costume for your partner and colleague. It’s fiction, and from a logical point of view, it’s a comical take on it. But prosopagnosia is a real condition that, according to a study recently published in bark, has a hitherto underestimated fall. It has been estimated that he suffers from this for about 2% of the population. However, in their opinion, figure will be 3% or, depending on the method of measurement, even 5%.

prosopagnosiaalso known as facial blindnessconsists of more or less great difficulty in recognizing familiar faces. The most affected people may not even recognize themselves. yourself in the mirror. And, on the other hand, there are some edge cases where the opposite is true. They think they find something familiar in people they’ve never seen.

may arise after brain injuryin this case easier to diagnose. However, there are cases when they are present from birth. They are the most difficult to diagnose, as it is very inconvenient for these people not to recognize faces, but it can seem normal, so they never get diagnosed. This is what prompted the authors of the new study to look for a different approach.

What happens to people with prosopagnosia?

In people with prosopagnosia, an area of ​​the brain known as the fusiform gyrus is often affected. If the faces are intact, they can be recognized using a different procedure than that used for distinguish between inanimate objects. However, if this is affected, faces are recognized as if they were objects, so the features are not given as much attention and recognition can be more difficult.

It should be noted that other cognitive functions are not affected, so sometimes, if the case is mild, it is difficult to diagnose. But this is important for two reasons, despite no cure. First, these people understand what is happening to them. On a psychological level, this can be instructive and helpful. And, secondly, that even without treatment, can be trained with tricks to facilitate this recognition.

How did you discover the underdiagnosis?

The authors of this new prosopagnosia study conducted facial recognition surveys of 3,100 Americans. Various scoring methods have been used to distinguish a person with prosopagnosia from a person who is simply slightly less skillfully recognizes faces. Now, depending on where the scale was set, the incidence could go from 0.13% to 5.42%. The standards commonly used are so strict that, given the study’s survey, this figure would be 1%.

However, they also saw something interesting. And the fact is that people who are not usually diagnosed with prosopagnosia get worse results than those who do. For this reason, they concluded that should be a spectrumas for autism, which reflects varying degrees of facial blindness.

For this reason, they believe that it would be necessary to make Differences between major prosopagnosia and mild prosopagnosia. They found 31 people in the first case and 72 in the second, so the figure would rise to 3%.

If the diagnostic criteria for this classification were changed, many people would be able to understand what is happening to them. It should be noted that many of us once said: “I’m very bad at distinguishing faces.” This does not mean that we have prosopagnosia. This is something more complex. But yes, some of the people who say it can have it. Luckily, it’s more annoying than serious, so there’s not much to worry about.