Can you visualise people easily?

[pjcnet]

I can remember the silhuette but the face itself is a blank sheet of paper for me. The only thing that helps me recognise people is the hair or sometimes eye colour. That's why, unfortunately, most black, asian or muslim people, especially women, look the same to me.

Perhaps most people of the same race are able to automatically recognise each other easier and the further the species is different from ourselves, the less most people automatically see the differences. People sometimes think it's racist when someone says that a certain race all look the same, but to that person they might to some extent. Most people see huge differences in people's faces, especially of the same race as themselves, yet the actual differences are grossly exaggerated and interpreted by the brain, to an animal most humans look alike in the same way as most chimpanzees look alike to most of us, in time they can recognise differences in us as we can in time with them, but I don't believe it's so automatic. I'm therefore wondering whether the skill of human recognition of a similar species or even of certain races is developed over time while in their company, in other words if a person lived amongst chimpanzees they may well recognise them as easily as we recognise humans of the same race and if they didn't see humans, then they'd probably all look alike. Similarly if a White British person lived in Africa in the African community then they'd probably start recognising African people a lot better than even people of their own race. This is just a theory however. Of course this poll has shown that some autistic people like myself have issues visualising even people however and this therefore makes it more difficult to automatically recognise people generally.

 

[onlything]

But Islam is the most racially diverse religion in the world!

The only Muslims I've met so far were from Middle East/Turkey/Jordan/etc. not counting one French woman. Maybe it's only my inexperience considering this religion speaking but so far they all look all the same to me.

 

[SplendidSnail]

Two strikes against me on this one. I've got both Prosopagnosia (Face-blindnes) and Aphantasia (the inability to see a picture in my mind). Both self-diagnosed based on online tests, unlike my ASD, which is an official diagnosis.

Prosopagnosia (Face-blindnes)

The Cambridge Face Memory test is linked here. The average score is 80%, and if you score under 60%, you might be face blind.

I've never met a person who is worse with names than me. I thought I was fine with faces for years, until finally I realised that a significant part of the problem is that, by the time I recognise someone's face, it's no longer appropriate to be asking their name.

I managed 38% on the Cambridge Face Memory test.​

Aphantasia (Inability to see a picture in your mind)

There's a test linked here.

I can recall in grade 2, the teacher doing quite a few exercises with us where we had to close our eyes and picture something, and being quite frustrated that I'd close my eyes, but couldn't see any picture in my mind.

Eventually, I decided that I wasn't supposed to be seeing any picture in my mind, that I was just supposed to think about whatever the teacher said, and then I wasn't quite so frustrated. I decided that nobody actually sees pictures in their mind, and that "picture a sunset" just means to think about a sunset.

The first time I did this test in the link above, I really didn't know how to answer the questions. How detailed is the picture I'm imagining? How can I answer that? The questions were basically meaningless to me, but I answered them anyway as best I could, and got a basically average score.

Then, after doing some further research, I found out that some people with Aphantasia can, in fact, sometimes see pictures in their mind; they just can't do it at will. And it's true - sometimes, I do involuntarily see pictures in my mind when I'm thinking about something, but as soon as I consciously try to do it, it goes away.

So I did the test again, this time trying to produce the same kind of image in my mind as I see invulunarily from time to time. And couldn't do it at all. My score on the test this time: 8/40, the lowest possible score, which indicates a high probability of Aphantasia.​

 

[Gracey]

I’d always thought I could visualise people easily.

An incident happened to one of my neighbours (next door but one) in the early hours of the 25th.

Two hours earlier, I’d driven passed what I now believe to be the three responsible for the crime.
(Although I may be mistaken)

It would seem I don’t remember as many descriptive details about people as I thought I did.

It was dark and although I can describe exactly where they were stood and what they were doing, I can only recall the details of the one who stared as I drove passed.
The other two are vague.

I can recall details of those I’ve lived with for twenty-odd years really well.

Those I looked at for approximately 5 seconds, maybe not so well.

 

[pjcnet]

Two strikes against me on this one. I've got both Prosopagnosia (Face-blindnes) and Aphantasia (the inability to see a picture in my mind). Both self-diagnosed based on online tests, unlike my ASD, which is an official diagnosis.

Prosopagnosia (Face-blindnes)

The Cambridge Face Memory test is linked here. The average score is 80%, and if you score under 60%, you might be face blind.

I've never met a person who is worse with names than me. I thought I was fine with faces for years, until finally I realised that a significant part of the problem is that, by the time I recognise someone's face, it's no longer appropriate to be asking their name.

I managed 38% on the Cambridge Face Memory test.​

Aphantasia (Inability to see a picture in your mind)

There's a test linked here.

I can recall in grade 2, the teacher doing quite a few exercises with us where we had to close our eyes and picture something, and being quite frustrated that I'd close my eyes, but couldn't see any picture in my mind.

Eventually, I decided that I wasn't supposed to be seeing any picture in my mind, that I was just supposed to think about whatever the teacher said, and then I wasn't quite so frustrated. I decided that nobody actually sees pictures in their mind, and that "picture a sunset" just means to think about a sunset.

The first time I did this test in the link above, I really didn't know how to answer the questions. How detailed is the picture I'm imagining? How can I answer that? The questions were basically meaningless to me, but I answered them anyway as best I could, and got a basically average score.

Then, after doing some further research, I found out that some people with Aphantasia can, in fact, sometimes see pictures in their mind; they just can't do it at will. And it's true - sometimes, I do involuntarily see pictures in my mind when I'm thinking about something, but as soon as I consciously try to do it, it goes away.

So I did the test again, this time trying to produce the same kind of image in my mind as I see invulunarily from time to time. And couldn't do it at all. My score on the test this time: 8/40, the lowest possible score, which indicates a high probability of Aphantasia.​

Extremely useful, I wish these links were put up sooner so more people would compare and discuss their results.

I scored 57% on the 1st test, I scored higher than yourself, but it still means I'm considerably lower than average which is 80% and therefore it's concludes that I could be face blind. I think I managed some of the earlier questions, but later I was completely lost and forced to choose random answers. If I had waited 10 minutes however and then tried to remember the faces I would have totally failed miserably, even in the earlier part of the test.

I only scored 12/40 on the 2nd test which put me in the lowest band even though I was slightly higher than your score, it said, "Approximately 5% of people fall into this, the lowest, score band. Your score suggests that your visual imagery is less rich than usual. You may lack visual imagery, the state scientists have described as aphantasia, particularly if your score is toward the lower end of the band.". I couldn't visualise the details on my relative (I choose my Mum) at all no matter now much I tried, I vaguely managed to get very short flashes of the sun and sky in the later questions, but with no detail at all so it was very vague.

Thanks for this.