Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, means you cannot recognise people's faces.
Face blindness often affects people from birth and is usually a problem a person has for most or all of their life. It can have a severe impact on everyday life.
Many people with prosopagnosia are not able to recognise family members, partners or friends.
They may cope by using alternative strategies to recognise people, such as remembering the way they walk or their hairstyle, voice or clothing.
But these types of strategies do not always work – for example, when a person with prosopagnosia meets someone in an unfamiliar location.
The impact of prosopagnosia
A person with prosopagnosia may avoid social interaction and develop social anxiety disorder, an overwhelming fear of social situations.
They may also have difficulty forming relationships or experience problems with their career. Feelings of depression are common.
Some people with prosopagnosia cannot recognise certain facial expressions, judge a person's age or gender, or follow a person's gaze.
Others may not even recognise their own face in the mirror or in photos.
Prosopagnosia can affect a person's ability to recognise objects, such as places or cars.
Many people also have difficulty navigating. This can involve an inability to process angles or distance, or problems remembering places and landmarks.
Following the plot of films or television programmes can be almost impossible for someone with prosopagnosia because they struggle to recognise the characters.
Someone with prosopagnosia may worry that they appear rude or not interested when they fail to recognise a person.
What causes prosopagnosia?
There are 2 types of prosopagnosia:
developmental prosopagnosia – where a person has prosopagnosia without having brain damage
acquired prosopagnosia – where a person develops prosopagnosia after brain damage, often following a stroke or head injury
In the past, most cases of prosopagnosia were thought to occur after a brain injury (acquired prosopagnosia).
But research has found that many more people have prosopagnosia without having brain damage (developmental prosopagnosia) than was first thought.
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