Find Out If You Have Face Blindness by Taking This Simple Test

Believe it or not, there are individuals struggling to recognize people, including their partner, family, close friends and even themselves.

Face blindness or prosopagnosia, a brain disorder affecting 2% of the population, is characterized by one’s inability to recognize faces.  According to medicinenet.com, this condition is believed to be a result of damage, abnormalities, or impairment in the gyrus, a fold in the brain responsible for coordinating neural systems controlling memory and facial perception. It can also result from certain neurodegenerative diseases, traumatic brain injury or stroke.

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Researchers at the Medical Research Centre’s Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at King’s College London recently came up with a “20-item Prosopagnosia Index” to help improve the diagnosis of face blindness. The short questionnaire is a simple and accurate way to identify individuals suffering from the condition.

“In its most extreme form people with face blindness cannot even recognise their family or friends. This can have a disabling impact on their life, including on their career prospects,” lead researcher Punit Shah explained.

“And whilst it was once thought to be rare, it is increasingly being seen as a more common condition that is often overlooked,” she added.

Click this link to take the test.

Coping With Face Blindness

Face blindness can have a serious effect on a person’s life particularly on his or her relationships and careers. In some cases, people with this condition develop social anxiety disorder or avoid social situations.

This is why people suffering from face blindness often use different coping strategies to recognize people.

Here are some of them, according to NHS.uk:

  1. Memorizing a person’s voice, clothing, hairstyle and certain mannerisms
  2. Following a person’s gaze
  3. Judging a person’s age or gender
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