I never knew that renowned neurologist & author Oliver Sacks, who has written about prosopagnosia, suffers from it himself! Most notably, he addressed prosopagnosia in his 1985 publication, The Man who Mistook his Wife for A Hat. These video clips are from a discussion at last year's World Science Festival in New York about this very topic & how I came to learn of Dr. Sacks' first-hand experience. [more inside]
posted by PepperMax on Mar 2, 2011 - 35 comments

Prosopagnosia, or face blindness, is an impairment which limits one's ability to recognize faces (previously). As part of the World Science Festival, Robert Krulwich interviews two famous suffers of this little known disease: the portrait artist Chuck Close and the neuroscientist and writer Oliver Sacks. [more inside]
posted by 1f2frfbf on Jun 18, 2010 - 78 comments

Test My Brain was set up by Harvard's Vision Lab and Social Neuroscience and Psychopathology Lab. There are five tests online at the time of this post; take one and maybe you'll learn something about yourself that you may not have known (other than your special ability to slack off on MetaFilter when you should be working). At the same time, you'll be helping researchers collect data from a wide range of subjects. One of the collaborators, Professor Ken Nakayama, is also responsible for creating these online tests for faceblindness. [previously] [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on May 21, 2009 - 69 comments

Face blind: Imagine living in a world in which you are surrounded by blank faces. You see people all around you, but you can't recognize them by their faces, only by context, clothing, and hair. You don't recognize your neighbors when you see them in the grocery store, and you couldn't pick your co-workers' faces out of a line-up. You have to learn special coping methods to get through your daily social activities. This is what it is like to have prosopagnosia, or face blindness.
posted by litlnemo on Nov 10, 2003 - 7 comments