• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

faceless people

Pats

Pats

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Wow something just hit me out of the blue. I've tried to explain to my daughter in law, because I didn't know my son had shaved his beard until she pointed it out. I don't look at faces - I may stare into one eye but I don't really see the face. In a crowd it's just a bunch of faceless people I'm walking through. I don't recognize someone I may have spent an hour talking to last week because I'm not looking at the face.
So, okay I know all that, but what just hit me was thinking about sitting in elementary school. No, I never listened to the teacher but I was having to look up and I would be picturing people figures (faceless) walking or sitting or doing whatever along the blackboard frame or what have you. If I was supposed to be looking down at my desk I was drawing these figures doing different things - but I never put a face on them. I know - it was one of my weird quirks - but the thing is, is lack of faces.
 
It does sound like prosopagnosia. I see people very clearly, every single line and shadow. But I struggle to relate the face to an identity. If I think of my mother, I can't picture her face in my mind. Even though I've known her my entire life. But I could draw her very accurately if she was in the room.
 
Sid Delicious said:
It does sound like prosopagnosia. I see people very clearly, every single line and shadow. But I struggle to relate the face to an identity. If I think of my mother, I can't picture her face in my mind. Even though I've known her my entire life. But I could draw her very accurately if she was in the room.
Click to expand...
But drawing someone's face is a deliberate act of looking at the facial features. Wouldn't the inability to picture her face in your mind be a characteristic like I'm talking about. I think it's more that I don't relate to the faces so much as other aspects. When you're in a crowd of people, are you seeing faces or just figures walking past you?
Just curious.
 
I don't see faces at all. I mean they are there, but I can't work out what I'm seeing, so consequently I can't recognise people - even people I know quite well.

Many times in social situations people would talk to me as if I'd had a conversation with them before about something, and I'd remember the conversation, but not the person, or I'd think this person was the one I'd had that conversation with, and pick up where I'd left off, only to then discover I was talking to a stranger.

Also, as I have posted before, once I was visiting my mother, years after I'd left home and after she'd moved, and when a woman I'd never seen before answered the door I apologised for having got the wrong address. It was only when she called my name as I walked away that I realised it was her, and I just didn't know what she looked like - particularly not out of the context of the place I'd always known her.

I used to think I was just being lazy not looking at people hard enough, but however much I tried to focus on faces, I never could see them.

Yet I can learn to recognise people who are close to me. I know my wife on sight anywhere, and her sons and my daughters. Their faces are clear as day. I know the people I work with, though mostly only when I see them in the work environment. Occasionally, and seemingly randomly, I will recognise an unknown person, or someone I already know but in an unfamiliar environment. Generally though, almost everyone is a constant stranger.
 
"When you're in a crowd of people, are you seeing faces or just figures walking past you?"

I don't consciously think about it, but I guess I'm seeing a bunch of colours, shapes, lines that my brain recognises as specific known 'things'. So faces aren't any more prominant than the pavement, a tree or a human body. I struggle to recognise my family if the environment isn't an expected one.
 
AO1501 said:
I don't see faces at all. I mean they are there, but I can't work out what I'm seeing, so consequently I can't recognise people - even people I know quite well.

Many times in social situations people would talk to me as if I'd had a conversation with them before about something, and I'd remember the conversation, but not the person, or I'd think this person was the one I'd had that conversation with, and pick up where I'd left off, only to then discover I was talking to a stranger.

Also, as I have posted before, once I was visiting my mother, years after I'd left home and after she'd moved, and when a woman I'd never seen before answered the door I apologised for having got the wrong address. It was only when she called my name as I walked away that I realised it was her, and I just didn't know what she looked like - particularly not out of the context of the place I'd always known her.

I used to think I was just being lazy not looking at people hard enough, but however much I tried to focus on faces, I never could see them.

Yet I can learn to recognise people who are close to me. I know my wife on sight anywhere, and her sons and my daughters. Their faces are clear as day. I know the people I work with, though mostly only when I see them in the work environment. Occasionally, and seemingly randomly, I will recognise an unknown person, or someone I already know but in an unfamiliar environment. Generally though, almost everyone is a constant stranger.
Click to expand...
I want to laugh at a couple of your comments because I relate. I want to agree with everything you just said. It was informative - so I just have to put winner her because it fits so many responses.
 
Sid Delicious said:
"When you're in a crowd of people, are you seeing faces or just figures walking past you?"

I don't consciously think about it, but I guess I'm seeing a bunch of colours, shapes, lines that my brain recognises as specific known 'things'. So faces aren't any more prominant than the pavement, a tree or a human body. I struggle to recognise my family if the environment isn't an expected one.
Click to expand...
Yes, it was always hard for me to find my own kids in a crowd after an event because it requires looking at all the faces. I used to mostly wait and let them find me. always felt guilty for that.
 
"The face is what one goes by, generally," Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.

"That's just what I complain of," said Humpty Dumpty. "Your face is the same as everybody has—the two eyes,—" (marking their places in the air with his thumb) "nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance—or the mouth at the top—that would be some help."

Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carrroll
 
Pats said:
I don't recognize someone I may have spent an hour talking to last week because I'm not looking at the face.
Click to expand...
Same here. I remember the colour of the hair or the car they drive, their name and where I saw them, whether they are short or tall, but not the face. I don't remember people's faces out of context. I don't meet or talk to many new people, though.
 
I have a similar problem with faces outside their usual context. I may know somebody when I see them at work but I can see them in the local supermarket an hour later and walk past them with at best a nagging feeling they look slightly familiar.
Oddly I'm very good with voices. The moment that someone speaks I recognise them. It's the same on TV too. Many's the time we're watching an American show and I'll recognise an actor that I've only seen previously in heavy prosthetic makeup in something like Star Trek or Babylon 5 just by their voice.
 
I acquired prosopagnosia after an accident. Very scary. People say HI and you don't know who they are. I am much better, but once in a while......
 
The first time i talk to someone i dont really look at them because in too anxious. I have to run into them a few times and even then they would have to walk the same way and especially the hair would have to be the same.
When i get anxious my vision gets blurry and narrow. Im good at recognizing people from the back though! Body posture is much easier for me to recognize!
 
Well, after reading this thread, I can see why my faceless/detail-less drawings were questioned when I was getting diagnosed for ASD. If I recall correctly, I explained that they didn't really need any faces.
Though, I do remember faces quite well and will recognize someone from over a decade ago even if it's been that long. Yeah, remembering someone like yesterday, even though it's been half a decade or so, can be awkward, especially since most don't remember me or only very vaguely.
 
I recognize faces of people I am close with.
But, just out walking amongst people, like at the mall, they are just bodies going by.
I always joked they may as well be trees.
That's how I cope with being in a crowd or around people I don't know.
Don't look them in the face.
 
Pats said:
Wow something just hit me out of the blue. I've tried to explain to my daughter in law, because I didn't know my son had shaved his beard until she pointed it out. I don't look at faces - I may stare into one eye but I don't really see the face. In a crowd it's just a bunch of faceless people I'm walking through. I don't recognize someone I may have spent an hour talking to last week because I'm not looking at the face.
So, okay I know all that, but what just hit me was thinking about sitting in elementary school. No, I never listened to the teacher but I was having to look up and I would be picturing people figures (faceless) walking or sitting or doing whatever along the blackboard frame or what have you. If I was supposed to be looking down at my desk I was drawing these figures doing different things - but I never put a face on them. I know - it was one of my weird quirks - but the thing is, is lack of faces.
Click to expand...

I have prosopagnosia, but it seems like it has the opposite effect on me than on you. If someone shaves their beard or gets a haircut, I can't recognize them anymore. I can't even recognize myself in the mirror sometimes, especially if I shave my beard off.
 
I only recognize people that I have known for a long time. And I mean like three years or more. Beyond that, people are just people. Nothing special to me. They are just bodies in a room. I don’t care to meet new people that much because it is overwhelming for me. I always watch people’s lips, never the whole face. Lip reading has become a talent I guess.
 
I even fail to recognize people whom I've known for years. It's one, of many reasons, I don't tend to greet people...........never completely sure who it is.

Strangely, I can tell people apart by clothing patterns which people tend to wear consistently. If a person changes clothes; forget it.

For example, I could play soccer with someone for 5 years, but if I saw that person in a different setting I would almost surely not recognize them. I know this, because it's happened to me a number of times where someone comes up to talk to me and I literally have no ability to place that person. At the same time I don't want to ask them their name because that can be really awkward.

A few times people have asked, "Do you know who I am?"

This is the same if I see someone from work while playing sports. But in their "proper" places I don't have too much issue.
 
This hurts me more than anything else in my life. To not know someone I love (my son, my granddaughter, an old family friend) when they are not where they belong.
I can not think about not knowing my little granddaughter when I saw her in town without unbelievable heart ache.
If you cut your hair I am not going to know you. If you wear a hat I wont know you. This I think is the hardest thing...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Threads

Top Bottom