Face-blindness PSA
Jul. 1st, 2013 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiAs I'm working my way through Arrested Development season 4 (which, once you get past the first episode -- which might be the worst thing Mitch Hurwitz has created in his entire career -- is actually pretty solid), I feel the need to note that the creators here do not, any more than the Royal Pains folks do, understand face-blindness, at least as far as I experience it and anyone I've compared note with does.
Face-blindness is not actually the inability to see faces; it's the inability to recognize them. So yes, I know if someone has blue eyes or a big nose. I can tell if someone's attractive (based on my personal aesthetic), and I know where their mouth and ears are. What happens is that I won't be able to process that face later, so without other cues (context, voices, clothing, hair, etc), I'll have a lot of trouble figuring out that you're the same person I met the other day.
Perception, incidentally, is the one show I've seen that kind of got it right.
Face-blindness is not actually the inability to see faces; it's the inability to recognize them. So yes, I know if someone has blue eyes or a big nose. I can tell if someone's attractive (based on my personal aesthetic), and I know where their mouth and ears are. What happens is that I won't be able to process that face later, so without other cues (context, voices, clothing, hair, etc), I'll have a lot of trouble figuring out that you're the same person I met the other day.
Perception, incidentally, is the one show I've seen that kind of got it right.