[cathyw]

Facial recognition is etremely hard for people with certain types of macular degeneration.
My mother is almost blind in one eye from it and has loss of vision in the other eye. She can only see parts of peoples faces even up close so she recognizes people mostly by voice. To look at her, you wouldn't know she had a vision problem, so I'm sure lots of people get annoyed when she passes them in the street. She is a snowbird and when she is down here she attends the Low Vision Clubs meetings. There are lots of Villagers with low vision that have problems with facial recognition ( and most of them do not tell their neighbors that the even have a vision problem)

[Sadie1313]

Originally Posted by dillywho

Did any of you happen to see 60 Minutes last night about Facial Blindness? Very interesting. It is just now being recognized by the medical community.

For those of you who didn't, it was about people, who for some neurological disorder (which has not been pinpointed, yet), cannot recognize anyone's face. One guy cannot even recognize his own face in the mirror at times. He has to go feature by feature and when he sees that the face has really big ears on the sides, he then knows it's him. People with this disorder can't even recognize their own children or spouses except by other means such as voice, how they walk, etc. They said that this would also explain why normal people often feel slighted (feel that they have been "high-hatted") or think that someone is being snobbish when they don't speak to them.

On the other hand, they also presented some who have just the opposite problem (if you can call it a problem sometimes) of remembering every face they have ever seen and can even recognize them from their childhood photos.

All if all, a very fascinating program. If you have access to online replays, I think you will find it very interesting.

I saw the program and found it very interesting. I can't imagine going through life, not recognizing my husband, kids or close friends. It must be so frustrating. Trish