recognizing faces

[kaigou]

I recall doing a beta-read for difrancis and tripping over a sub-plot that involved two childhood friends meeting again as adults... and recognizing each other instantly. That, to me, seemed preposterous. Biiiig suspension of disbelief! And bigger for Di herself, when she said she's recognized (as adults) people she knew in second grade. Just. Could. Not. Comprehend.

Oi. I have trouble recognizing coworker faces if our paths cross outside of work, and don't even ask me about faces (or names) of classmates, excepting a handful of really close friends. I've even walked right past my own sister with no recognition at all, when she chopped hair short and bleached it to white. And sure as spit, don't ever call me and think I'll recognize your voice. I've gone blank when my own father calls, for crying out loud. I'm never able to identify who's calling if I don't have caller-ID or some other hint to clue me in.

In person, I rely on things like hair color, length, and style, which means abrupt and extreme hair-style changes will throw me, especially if you're not wearing frequently-worn items like a distinctive coat or pair of shoes. I've learned to look for distinctive gestures and mannerisms, even if that means waiting patiently until someone who I think I should know -- and who acts like they know me -- says or does something that brings the face into sharper focus.

CP sometimes snarks that "all you white people look alike", but to me, pretty much... everyone does look alike. Or maybe I should say: everyone looks different, yes, but everyone looks unfamiliar. I just plain can't recall faces, and I sure as hell can't recall them if they're out of context (ie coworker not at work) or it's been more than about a year (ie old classmate).

Does anyone else do this, or have any similar kind of failure of recognition? I've always wondered if it's just me, or if it's just that everyone else fakes the lack of recognition better than I do.

Comments

[michaelmjones]

I'm horrible with faces and people. I can lose my own wife in a crowd of ten, given 15 seconds. Don't even ask me to remember who someone is if I haven't seen them in years. Heck, I can know someone in one context, and completely miss them if seen in another context (such as in the grocery store). And as for calling me on the phone without identifying yourself, well, it may take a while.

Names? Oh sure, I know names. I can go to a con and identify a great many people by the thing they wrote/edited/drew/etc years ago, but as far as knowing someone by their visual, I suck.

On the other hand, people seem to recognize -me- on sight, even after a decade or more, so clearly it's an individual thing. Probably has to do with artist vs writer, or left side vs right side, or one of those other distinctions.


(In a side note, the Captcha wants me to type "Barpoet ofFiore" which is -awesome-. Bar Poet of Fiore! What a great title. Or job.

[kaigou]

I've realized I only recall names if I see the names in writing (which may be related to stinky_horowitz's comment, below) -- things like team-member lists, which I saw weekly before each race, or name on cell-phone/caller ID, or names on email addresses. The more I see the name written (like, say, reading articles/posts by someone on the net) the more likely I am to remember the name, but hell if I can hook that name to a face.

I had friends in HS who used to think it was hysterical to call and refuse to tell me who they were, but to make me guess. They thought it was funny. I found it humiliating.

[jetsam]

Depends on the person, for me. Girls are easier than guys, mostly because the facial structure changes less. If a girl hadn't made any major changes (complete change of hair colour, say) then I'd say I had a reasonable chance, given time to work out why they looked familiar. With a guy, much less chance unless they recognised me first and I knew that I had to recognise them somehow.

Of course, I quite often see traces of people on facebook even if I haven't seen or indeed spoken to them in years, which ups the odds again.

For me, I'm ok with faces and much, much worse with names. So I'll recognise someone but be more 'I know you, but I haven't a clue who you are'.

[kaigou]

I didn't even get into names. I'm much worse with names, unless the name's been reinforced by seeing it in writing -- like on email, or on caller-ID. Which I suppose is sort of amusing, if I distance myself, to know that I have a speech pattern of simply never calling anyone by name, just to avoid the chance of screwing up.

When I watch television/movies or read books and characters call one another by name, I'm always startled, and more than a little impressed. (And envious, because if somewhere wrote a script for me, that had all the names, that'd be so awesome! Like, cue cards or something.) In cultures where the language decrees you're supposed to use proper-name rather than pronoun, I go through that recoil/envy thing all over again. If it's hard to get around name-forgetting in English, I can't even imagine the stress of name-remembering in a language where you can't avoid the name-use, and at the same time, I wonder if I'd be better at names if my language had name-use embedded in it from the very beginning.

[(Anonymous)]

Interestingly, I do well with people from way back when, but less so with people I've met in the last 10 or 20 years. I'm wondering if children remember better, or if those memories just stick longer. NOt a clue. But when I teach and students aren't in my classes, most of them I can't remember even ever teaching them. But then, what's weird, is that sometimes I"ll remember some of them totally. I have no idea what makes some stick and others don't. But I had a student that I had as a freshman 12 years ago, and any time I see him, I know exactly who he is, even though there was nothing at the time that made him more memorable than any other student. At least not that I was aware of.

Di (who can't sign in with the LJ moniker)

[kaigou]

Do you think maybe it has something to do with how many faces you need(ed) to remember? Our circle is much smaller as children, so perhaps we have fewer faces to catalog. As adults, our circle is much wider, so we selectively remember some and set the others aside and/or easily forget them. Long-term versus short-term memory.

Actually, there are some faces I recognize faster if the person has some attribute -- usually a way of speaking, or dressing, or moving -- that reminds me of someone else I knew, farther back in the past. Like when someone says, "you remind me of a friend from college, who always carried his bookbag like that." I worked with someone who completely associated me with a college roommate because of the way I carried my bag (and the type of bag), and eventually there were other things she claimed she saw similar between us.

Makes me wonder if the students you do remember, unexpectedly, are somehow tapping into previous stored associations like that.

[welfycat]

Not just you. I am super terrible at recognizing people and have had many brief conversations with people who obviously knew me, but I had no idea who they were.

I still can't recognize half of my coworkers by sight, and hair (like it is for you) is a huge indicator for me. I hate it when people cut/dye their hair, because then I have to reremember them all over again.

[kaigou]

Whew, it's so good to hear I'm not the only one staring blankly. I admit I've had a few desperate points, which is usually when I try the last-ditch, "did you do something different with your hair? it looks wonderful!" in hopes they'll say, "yes, I got it cut/colored/extensions" something... and nothing's worse than hearing a casual, "really? I haven't done anything special with it" or some similar comment that tells me that no, the failure-to-recognize isn't because of a change. It's just a plain failure. Le sigh.

[stinky_horowitz]

It sounds like you're the far side of a bell curve, to me. It's possibly because you're so literate, and became so at a very young age according to some studies cited here: http://cogsnews.ucsd.edu/?p=239 and in a better article here: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/literacy-takes-over-the-brain.ars

I've gotten much better at recognizing voices and faces in the past year thanks to becoming a pharmacy tech. I consciously worked at memorizing customers' names and faces, and now I often recognize people in town. So you could change, if you wanted to and were exposed to lots of people again and again.

[kaigou]

*reads*

*rereads*

That makes sense, but in a sort of "wow, that makes so much sense I can't believe it's been this long for someone to suggest it!" kind of shocked way.

It certainly explains why (as I said up in the very first reply) I can only remember names if I see them written out, over and over. Email and cellphone caller-ID are absolute godsends, as far as I'm concerned, because they reinforce names for me. Now if only I could get everyone in my life to wear a nametag for at least a few weeks, I might be able to connect faces with names, but somehow I don't see that happening...

[stinky_horowitz]

Yeah, after I posted that I realized I was in a pretty rare situation where I had reason to make people repeat their name to me over and over again, plus see the name written out in various forms. So, uh, yeah change is possible, just not realistic. Like, at all. *rueful grin*

[kaigou]

So, uh, yeah change is possible, just not realistic. Like, at all. *rueful grin*

It's the repetition and writing-out that can really make a difference, since effectively what you're doing is memorizing by repeated exposure. I used to be able to memorize massive amounts of information effortlessly -- as in, entire monologues or song lyrics or whatever -- but I rarely use that skill anymore, so now I have a much harder time memorizing things, if I don't have something associated with them. (As in, I can't memorize a single sentence if it exists in a void, like without a cue for the sentence-start or a context for it.) For that matter, it occurred to me while thinking over the various replies that I can't recall phone numbers any longer, because I don't have the repetition of typing them in, except for that one first time when I record the number -- and when I was in college, I had reams of phone numbers and names in my head!

[cyphomandra]

Ooh, this is fascinating (early & avid reader, hopeless at facial recognition). I can remember names much better if they're written down (yay name-tags!), but all too often I am staring at a face and knowing I know it, but either I can't remember the context or, if I get that, I can't get the name. I am particularly bad if I'm introduced verbally to two or more people, as I tend to match names within a group to people who "look like" those names, and my mental concept of this completely fails to match what they're actually called.

I do have a good memory for narrative, though, and once I get something to start me off I can remember stories that connect with people, even without their names; this helps in manga, actually, as particularly if there are large casts I will forget names but remember relationships.

[kaigou]

I am particularly bad if I'm introduced verbally to two or more people

Oh, that's the worst, really. When it's six names all reeled off one by one, it's like I can only remember the names after that if they're placed side-by-side with the other names. Like somehow "Jack, Jeff, Jennifer, Jane, and Beth" are all now just one combined unit, and forever after I'll never remember who-is-who unless they're all standing together. The exception to that seems to be if there's one person in the group who has a name that's alike or the same as someone else I do know well (or have known for a long time), then I remember the person by that contrast: "this is the Elizabeth that is not my friend from high school."

once I get something to start me off I can remember stories that connect with people

I wonder if that ties into the thing with literacy, because now that you mention it, I do similar: I can remember people much more quickly if I have a narrative. Which I suppose is sort of like creating a freeform 'context' for the person -- where that narrative acts as an associated story that 'places' the person in your personal history/memory (as opposed to 'placing' them in a physical environment of work or school context).

[law_nerd]

My mother called me a while back, all excited 'cause she'd just read an article that mentioned Prosopagnosia -- a.k.a. being bad at recognizing faces to the point where someone attaches a diagnosis name -- and she was thrilled to have a name to attach to what she'd thought was merely a personal failing. Apparently Prosopagnosia can be inherited ... don't have it myself, I got the "suck at remembering names" genes instead.

[kaigou]

There's a name for it?

*stunned*

Although to be honest, I'm just delighted to know I'm not the only one who struggles with it. That's actually more than enough, after so long of thinking it was yet another sign of how bad I am at being a friend, if I couldn't even recognize my friends' faces. To know there are people -- who I do admire as being the kind of people I'd like to emulate -- who also go through something similar makes me feel a lot less like some kind of awful pariah about it.

What's bizarre is my sister can recognize faces going back to her third and fourth years, and can rattle off names of people from last year all the way back to kindergarten. I have no idea how she does it, but then, she acts like I'm some kind of mutant for not immediately recognizing all these names she's dropping on me, or pictures she's sending me -- and what's worse is that often they're people who were my friends, not hers -- she'd only met them in passing, saw recent news of them, and wanted to let me know how they're doing. All I can ever do is change the subject.

[dragovianknight]

Oh, I totally fail at recognizing people unless I know them well or they have some distinctive feature I can recall.

[kaigou]

I think it boils down to context, really -- if I'm used to seeing someone at, say, the hardware store, I'll recognize them as long as I'm seeing them at the hardware store. Seeing them at the gas station, I can't for the life of me figure out who they are.

[dejla]

Actually, I can usually recognize people -- but I don't always remember their names. And I can usually recognize voices and put them with names.

But I've usually considered that an anomaly. A lot of people I know can't.

[kaigou]

I've always been impressed around friends who can hear someone's voice and immediately recognize it. It's like... magic!

Which is really strange, because I can hear just a few words of a voiceover and immediately place the voice, if there's not a face to go with it -- like watching animated films/shows, I can peg most voices within a line, and say, "that's the person who also did such-and-such a role." It's when it's voice+face that I think I'm too busy studying the face to give the voice much mind, unless the person has a really distinctive accent or way of speaking, which means I can't recognize actors -- but if they're doing a voiceover, I know them immediately.

I think it's actually not that I can't recognize faces, it's that I can't place where/how a face or voice is familiar, to me, personally, that is.

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

The New Yorker had a feature about this very issue not too long ago (more than a week, more than a month, probably not more than six months -- actually, I think it was toward the end of August). The writer was one of their regular neurologist-writers (Oliver Sacks, maybe?), and he was discussing both his own extreme difficulties with face recognition and what we seem to know about the underlying neurology.

The consensus seems to be that it's a continuum, and that where you fall on that continuum is likely a matter of hardwiring. Some of us are rotten at it; some unfortunate few are so rotten at it as to be essentially face-blind; at the other end of the continuum you have the legendary politicians who never do forget a face, and who can and do recognize people they met once, forty years ago, the instant they lay eyes on them again. I'm bad enough at it to believe that some people simply see in a way that I can't -- it makes more sense to me than it would to believe that they're somehow paying attention in ways that I don't.

Anyway, it's an interesting piece, and probably goes into more detail on the issue than you would ever need.

[kaigou]

Stinky (up above) had a link to several new studies on the connection between early literacy & facial recognition, which seems to boil down to the notion that learning to read -- which really amounts to training oneself to quickly identify letter-shapes and words -- may possibly take up parts of the brain that were previously used to recognize/catalog faces.

I find that notion utterly fascinating, when you consider that the newest generations -- thanks to the internet and email and texting -- probably spend more time reading/writing standardized text/letters on a regular basis than just about any generation previous. And, too, at a much younger age, I'd expect. Makes me wonder what kind of implications that might have down the road, when it comes to how we interpret/understand faces, including the issues of ingroup/outgroup facial recognition (harking back to the "all you ___ look alike"). How might it change our ingroup/outgroup interactions if on some level we began to see all faces as unfamiliar?

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

Interesting that you should mention the 'all you __ look alike' issue. As it happens, the reason I remember the rough date of the New Yorker article is that I had a summons for jury duty around the pub date, and was on a panel being questioned for possible service on a robbery case where one of the issues they were checking for was whether a potential juror might believe that a witness of one race was less likely to be able to accurately identify someone of another race than a witness of the same race would. And two days previously, I'd have told the judge that while I was aware of research showing the unreliability of eyewitness identification in general, I had no reason to think that the race of either witness or person allegedly witnessed would affect the degree of said unreliability.

But it wasn't two days earlier, and I'd seen the article, and I had to consider the possibility that indeed, a racial difference might make that ID even less reliable than it would otherwise be.

You raise a fascinating point about the possible implications of people beginning to find all faces somewhat unfamiliar-looking. I wonder, though, whether we wouldn't have some of the role currently filled by (normal people's) facial recognition skills simply occupied by other tools for physical recognition of familiar people? That is, I'm rotten at faces, but in practice a decent amount of the deficit is made up for by the fact that I do recognize people's ways of moving and of occupying space. I've recognized old friends across long stretches of airport concourse from the back on occasion, and I suspect that many other non-face-seeing people have done the same. Surely that would fill a lot of the same social role?

[kaigou]

I wonder, though, whether we wouldn't have some of the role currently filled by (normal people's) facial recognition skills simply occupied by other tools for physical recognition of familiar people?

Could be, could be. You're right about recognizing people by movement, and now that I think about it, I can recall recognizing people across large gatherings, because of the way the person walks or holds their hands or head or gestures. On the other hand, this reliance on gesture/movement might be one reason I will also frequently mistake one person for another, if similar gestures are in play. (People who've known each other for a really long time will eventually adapt the other's mannerisms to some degree, and that's a fast way to stump me in telling them apart at a quick glance.)

Except... the growing lack of facial recognition might also make it worse, in terms of "assuming all people who look like X must be Y" -- I think it's called heuristics -- because if we're getting worse at recognizing faces, then we need something to go on to know how to interact with a person, at least for that space of time where we're casting about for any recollection of knowing them (or more bluntly, while we're trying to decide whether this unfamiliar person gets our talk-with-friend reaction or our talk-with-stranger reaction). If immediate facial recognition is getting rarer, then I can see the risk of even greater issues of "all you __ look alike" because even the __ who are familiar are, well, no longer familiar. Hence, all alike, and that might make overcoming stereotypes and racial-issue-impressions even harder... in a very convoluted, non-articulate response, there. Sorry.

[law_nerd]

Yes, Oliver Sacks – the article itself is available to subscribers only, but there's podcast of an interview with him at: http://www.newyorker.com/online/2010/08/30/100830on_audio_sacks and apparently more on the topic in his most recent book http://www.oliversacks.com/books/the-minds-eye/

[kaigou]

I didn't even realize until I followed the links -- he's the author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat -- an amazing book, and an excellent writer. I shall definitely have to track down a copy of his latest. Thank you!

[quillori]

Google suggests Oliver Sacks in the August 30 edition, so spot on there. I don't have a subscription but the abstract looks interesting - I'll have a look for it next time I'm at the library.

I'm bad enough at it to believe that some people simply see in a way that I can't

(I'm reminding myself firmly you don't dive, and that while I like mackerel sushi well enough, I wouldn't describe it as a favourite so much as merely the only reasonably appetising option if one is going to eat mackerel at all, so there are some differences between us.) I was always puzzled by accounts of criminals trying to disguise their appearance for fear of being caught by someone who recognised them from a picture: there is a reasonable chance I may fail to recognise someone I've known for years if they're in an unfamiliar context or if they've change their hairstyle, so the thought of recognising a complete stranger from a picture... I'm prepared to accept my tendency to forget names is due to inattention, and that it may well be I'm just not interested enough in random people to whom I'm introduced to bother remembering their names, but facial recognition is just something I'm very bad at, even if I'm making an effort.

[kaigou]

I was always puzzled by accounts of criminals trying to disguise their appearance for fear of being caught by someone who recognised them from a picture: there is a reasonable chance I may fail to recognise someone I've known for years if they're in an unfamiliar context or if they've change their hairstyle, so the thought of recognising a complete stranger from a picture

Hahahaha, YES. I hate that in movies/books, when someone's recognized despite having changed clothes/hair/speech-patterns. I just can't believe it, not unless there's something really distinctive (and unchanged, like tattoos or birthmarks) to off-set the otherwise radical change. What makes it worse is that I've read/seen plenty of books/shows where the person who does not catch onto 'this is the same person but with different clothing, etc' is treated as stupid (if not outright lying) for not recognizing the criminal. It's a subtle line through many of the texts, but I guess being sensitive to it already, I can see it: the message is that the person who doesn't recognize must be deficient, slow on the uptake. So very rarely is it treated as the other way around, that the person who recognizes is the unusual one.

[susanna]

It sometimes happens to me when I meet someone I don't know well out of the usual context. And sometimes a new hairstyle irritates me.

I have heard that Jane Goodall, the famous woman who did research on Gorillas (or were it chimpanzees) has the same problem.

[kaigou]

Gorillas, I think.

New hairstyles actually bug me the most when it's an actor in a movie/show -- when the character switches styles or is 'in disguise' or is just wearing something radically different... and I end up watching the entire scene, trying to figure out where this new character came from, and what s/he has to do with the storyline. Movies/shows where a character gets a makeover? I hate those. It's like I just spent the first half of the show learning this one face, and now I have to learn it all over again. Grrrrrrrr. Triple that if it's some spy-thriller movie where the character switches hairpieces and facial hair and voice pattern and clothing style AND walk/talk/gesture patterns. It drives me crazy, because I feel like I'm constantly on edge, unable to pay attention to dialogue/plot for the first half of any scene, because I'm too busy trying to figure out who on the screen is the protagonist.

This is actually one reason I don't mind the fact that in anime, characters frequently wear the same outfit for the entire series... it means I don't have to back up and rewatch anything after a blank space of not knowing who's in the scene.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not hopeless at recognizing faces (although I am bad at remembering the name to go with the face) but I am completely hopeless at any type of visual *recall*.

Show me something I've seen before, I'll likely recognize it. Ask me to visualize it two seconds after I've seen it and I can't. I might be able to give you visual features but only if I've noticed them and converted them into words or another sense (generally touch).

Do you know how many memory tricks, meditation exercises, figures of speech... involve the casual assumption that everyone can remember what things look like? Can visualize things?

It's been intensely frustrating at times- although at least my inability to visualize is sufficiently complete that I've never had to wonder if it's a genuine difference (when you can't see a circle in your mind's eye....)

On the positive side I have very good tactile recall and ability for 'tactilization' for want of a better word -I love being able to feel with my mind's skin.

Kat

[kaigou]

Do you know how many memory tricks, meditation exercises, figures of speech... involve the casual assumption that everyone can remember what things look like?

I can't recall what things necessarily look like... unless I have a narrative in my head that 'describes' it for me. Like the replies (above) that discuss literacy and facial recognition, I think the notion of 'recognizing words/letters over faces' may carry into how we remember things, as a whole. I've never been able to see a circle in my mind's eye; when I daydream, I never daydream in images. Never have, as far back as I can remember. But I can describe a circle to myself, and when I daydream, it's really just a narration of events, with no images at all. Almost like my daydreams consist of reading a book, or having it read to me.

[thejeopardymaze]

CP sometimes snarks that "all you white people look alike", but to me, pretty much... everyone does look alike. Or maybe I should say: everyone looks different, yes, but everyone looks unfamiliar. I just plain can't recall faces, and I sure as hell can't recall them if they're out of context (ie coworker not at work) or it's been more than about a year (ie old classmate).


I have problems like this alot, though not as bad as Prosopagnosia. There are certainly people who do stand out from the crowd, lots of them, but alas, they do not make the majority. Emotional memory sometimes helps, particularly if I have a grudge.

[kaigou]

I think emotional memory probably counts as a kind of narrative, and in all the discussion here, I'm realizing that my biggest reliance is on a narrative of some sort, to create context. Having an emotional reaction or sense about a person might be, in some cases, a trigger for recalling the context and thereby being able to 'place' the person.

[themadpoker]

Oh man yeah I'm terrible with both faces and voices. It sucks because I've got a huge family most of whom I've only met a few times or talked to on the phone and whenever we meet they always remember me and I flounder trying to pretend I remember them. My brother has the same problem, we'd get so many lectures from our parents on it. :/ Honestly a person could very easily get away with pretending to know me because alot of the time I'll play along in a conversation hoping I'll remember who they are before it gets really obvious.

[kaigou]

Oh, large family gathering are honestly the worst, I think, because it's not meeting a ton of people at once, but the guilt involved if you don't remember every single one of them! I still hate large family gatherings for that reason, because (a) you see all of them so rarely, people can really change (or just grow up, or get much older) between visits, and (b) they always seem to know you, and take your not-knowing as offense (whether they say it to you or just mutter to your parents, later).

I still get the heebie-jeebies from just thinking about large family gatherings, after all the times growing up when I'd try to figure out who-was-who ahead of time (as prep before my parents shoved me in one direction or another to 'go be social!') -- and my mother would say, "that's your seventh cousin, on your paternal grandfather's side. How can you not know your seventh cousin?"

My sister and I used to tell each other that what we needed pre-gatherings was some kind of a pre-test. Like, flashcards with relatives' names and faces, so we could study up rather than being thrown in cold. Bleah.

[quillori]

I'm in the same boat as you. If people act as though they know me, I assume they must be right, but very probably I have to navigate through an entire conversation with them with no idea at all who they are. I do learn specific faces in the end, if I know the person well enough for long enough - I don't think I'd fail to recognise a close relative or really good friend even with quite a drastic change in look, but there aren't all that many people in that category. More distant friends, acquaintances, colleagues, movie stars ... it's a mystery to me how everyone goes about recognising each other, because most of the time I haven't a clue who people are. I'm not that great at voice recognition either - it's very annoying when people ring up and just launch into conversation assuming I will know who they are, because I shan't.

[kaigou]

I wouldn't say I'm completely hopeless (or completely face-blind) -- I just have a significant delay between seeing a face and registering where/how I know that face. It's actually pretty rare that I'll go an entire conversation and not finally remember the person, and when that has happened, it's because it's been five or six years since meeting, or because I didn't know them all that well in the first place.

But when I do finally recognize them, the expression 'it falls into place' is almost literally apt. It's tangible, the 'click' in my head that shifts the face from "who is this person?" to "I've known this person for years", and alongside that, it's almost like my understanding of the face/person shifts at the same time. Like looking at a math equation and the numbers are all flipped around and don't seem to have any logic to them, then suddenly you realize: ah, this for building a bridge! and then all the numbers abruptly make sense.

[maire]

I have excellent facial recognition in one way, but it's a bit quirky.

I know a woman who I met once at a party when she was 16 and I was 20. I next ran into her ten years later at a cafe. As per usual for me, I was completely sure of one thing: my opinion of her based on the last time we'd met.

No idea how I met her or what her name was, though. That's also usual for me.

Similarly, when I was 18, I remember meeting a guy from my primary school class. I hadn't seen him since we were 11. I knew at once that he was a nice guy and not that bright academically when it came to primary-school subjects. Not his name, though, despite having apparently been in a class with him from age 5 to 11.

I have real trouble with names. Often I can work out how I know people by using context clues in my opinion of them. If I think someone is very annoying in tutorials, for example, it's likely they were in one of my classes at university. Or if I think someone is an authority on editorial technique, then I've probably worked with them in publishing. Generally I can work from there.

I eventually tracked down how I knew the woman from the party by remembering that she'd really liked my boots and that I thought her clothing style was cool for a 16-year-old. That gave me the cue to recall that she was the party host's very young girlfriend (16 is legal in this country, but it's unusual for a 21-year-old to have a 16-year-old partner). I still had no idea about her name.

Many of my friends remember me spending the first few years of our friendships occasionally asking for reminders of their names.

***

You're certainly not alone with your particular recognition issue.

I have a friend who has a severe case of non-recognition-of-faces. If I see her in the street and greet her, I need to tell her who I am or drop clear cues into the conversation so she can recognise me. Yet I've known her for years, worked with her on an art exhibition, and am entirely sure, from her reactions, that she likes me. She's intelligent and articulate, but the little bit in my head that tells me what I think of people, and tells others what people's names are, just doesn't seem to be there at all.

[kaigou]

I suspect that relates to some of what's being discussed in comments above yours -- that emotional context constitutes a 'narrative' of sorts, and that narrative acts as a framing device for remembering a person. When I put my mind to it (which I rarely bother to do these days), I can recall minute details about a person's expression, mannerisms, and speech, and since that's also the mechanism by which I remember most people (so if you're standing still, I'll probably walk right past you!)...

Thing is, it's not that I can't recognize faces, so much as I just have a very delayed reaction. Once something (other than the face) pings me and I realize, "I know this person!" and I'm able to place where/how, then it's like something shifts and suddenly the face is also familiar. To the point that sometimes it's so drastic, interior-wise, that I find myself momentarily boggled as to how I could've possibly forgotten. Yet I do, repeatedly, if there's even the remotest chance of loss-of-context.

[windsorblue]

I usually recognize faces and have no clue about the names. I blame D-land - all those years of having a nametag to look at made me lazy.

[kaigou]

Blame the nametags for the same reason I blame cellphones -- now I don't have to remember a single telephone number... and now, I CAN'T. You could tell me a number and I'll forget it halfway through writing it down. I used to have HUNDREDS of telephone numbers in my head! ...but I think they all fell out with each new email address learned.

Man, sometimes I can see some real value in making people wear name-tags. Hrm, come to think of it, nearly every place I've worked does require badges. The problem is that most people wear them at the hip, and in a professional environment, it's kinda hard to casually stare at someone's crotch pants-pocket. *cough*

[dancing_serpent]

Not just you, it's the same for me. It was even worse when I was younger and very embarrassing, too. I think I found better coping mechanisms now, for example let the other talk first and see if s/he recognises me. *g*

I read the comments and the linked articles and I'm fascinated and a bit relieved. Suddenly it all makes much more sense to me and I don't feel so stupid any more about some of the situations I was in.

[kaigou]

Suddenly it all makes much more sense to me and I don't feel so stupid any more about some of the situations I was in.

This is one of the reasons I love the internets: to know we're not alone.

[irrelevant]

I'm very good with faces. I once recognized a guy I hadn't seen since kindergarten twenty years later when I was standing behind him in line at a grocery store.

Names, I suck at. Faces, sure, and even where I know a given face from, but a name to go with the face? Forget it.

I could halfway suspend disbelief for your friend's plot, because I could see *one* of the people recognizing the other; that kind of recognition is possible for people with a certain kind of recall; it's possibly genetic: my mom, my brother and I all have it. But it's not exactly a typical trait, and for two unrelated people who were friends and have just met up again after many years to have that kind of recall? That's a lot of coincidence. Or maybe a bad romance novel moment.

[kaigou]

I pretty much said the same thing -- that I would've believed one of them doing the instant-recall (especially in light of later discovery that he'd recalled b/c he was facing his very first major crush, and that does kind of imprint on us to some degree) -- but both, I wasn't so sure. I wanted something distinctive, like an accent or a way of moving or a pattern of speech or a phrase, something that might trigger the "I didn't expect to hear/see that, and it makes me think of ___, waitaminnit..." kind of process.

It was definitely one of those times where the beta-reader (like any reader) is taking personal experience/perspective and, in a way, changing the story or mis-reading the story because of that personal background. Like having someone yell during a fight, and my reaction is that this is it, the relationship is over (and thus am always shocked when the couple then goes into heat-overdrive). I can hardly expect the writer to write to my preferences, but still, I can't seem to turn them off as a beta-reader!

[onthehill]

I am AWFUL at remembering faces. The worst thing is for some reason people always remember me.
I was introduced to a woman last week, and I said "Oh yes, I've seen your face around for years, it's nice to finally meet properly." Her response was "We spent some long evenings together with X,Y & Z about 10 years ago - I always wondered why you never said hello..."
And I am completely bewildered. Totally struck dumb. I have NO KNOWLEDGE of these alleged good times with this person I supposedly spent hours conversing with.

[kaigou]

The worst thing is for some reason people always remember me.

It's purely anecdotal, but it does seem to be a trend of some sort -- those of us who can't recall faces are the ones with the most memorable faces ourselves? Because I've had high school classmates not just remember my first name, but my full name, and say hello in crowded malls and in the subway and all these so-not-expecting-that locations.

On the other hand, as my sister pointed out, maybe this is a good thing -- that it's been so long since high school and I still look very close to how I looked then? But then again, some days that's not such a great thing to contemplate. Well, at least I don't still have the same hairstyle. (Or hair-color.) But still...

heh.