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Comment by smohnot | Hacker News Reader

I dated someone who had prosopagnosia. She didn't know that she had it until she was in college on a trip to South East Asia, and she ran into her sister in a market in Malaysia and didn't recognize her sister! She normally can recognize people but uses other cues and the fact that they were in Malaysia meant she wasn't ready for it.

When we first started dating, I had a beard. The day I shaved it off, we met up for dinner at a restaurant, and I'd sat down while waiting for her. She arrived at the restaurant and scanned for quite a bit and didn't recognize me until I waved.

The brain is quite an interesting thing. If you like these stories, check out Oliver Sacks book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_f...

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Did she have troubles following movie/TV series plots? I also lived with exactly what you describe for years before realising it had a name, and looking back the strongest indication was finding it far more difficult than others to follow movies, especially if they switch between different story lines.

The Departed [0] was probably the strongest example as Leonardo di Caprio and Matt Daemon look fairly similar anyway so I was super confused for most of it.

Once I've seen someone 5-6 times it gets easier to recognise them, but it's always awkward if I meet new people in crowded situations and then "lose" them again and have to wait for them to initiate a conversation before I know who I'm supposed to be with.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Departed

I have something similar with movies with lot of characters, I confuse faces quite a bit and try to take in other cues but depending on how the movie was made it is either successful or not. But I don't think I have prosopagnosia, most likely I don't have it. In crowds I get a bit disoriented and I did confuse people but that's a whole different story, there's some anxiety when my brain has to keep track of too many people.

[Not the GP]

I've never been good at following movie plots. It does depend on the plot. "Detective" type plots where a key twist is when someone we've already seen appears in a different and unexpected place while dressed differently are the worst.

Not being able to recognize actors across movies, who plays in what movie is something I've never paid attention to.

Which meant that I didn't realise for years that part of the joke in Austin Powers is that it's the same actor playing all of the roles.

To be fair, he looks quite different as each character with all the makeup/prosthetics/etc.

I would invite you to watch Orphan Black and try to figure out which characters are supposed to be clones or not.

The one that really gets me is when they use photographs in film/tv, a character looks at a photo and you know the rest of the audience knows who it is supposed to be, but I have no freakin idea.

I have prosopagnosia, and movies are often a problem. I recall an Agatha Christie film where the opening was set at a big dinner party. All the men were wearing dinner jackets, and we were shown lots of plot-critical conversations about expected legacies and old feuds. I gave up at that point: there was no chance of me having any clue about the plot.

Wouldn’t a custom subtitle track just for people with Prosopagnosia help? Like every time a character appears, show her/his name for 5 seconds. If there isn’t already a subculture that creates fan-made subtitle tracks, we should create one.

A great idea! BTW Amazon video do something similar through their X-Ray feature with cast details depending on who is on screen.

This is an excellent idea.

I also have a mild form and following movie plots can be difficult for me as well sometimes when people look really similar. In that case I concentrate a lot during the first 20-30 minutes.

Meeting new people can indeed be tough, especially when the people look very similar and normal. The most difficult/awkward situations I've encountered on the street though. It's then like: wait do I know this person and should I look again? (Or maybe a third time?) So when I'm not feeling exactly super-pumped, I just walk quickly with tunnel-vision. But through the years I've become an expert remembering certain details like hair-cut, the way people move and so on...

Sometimes I wonder whether I should tell people. Actually some really popular people have it, for instance Victoria of Sweden. I read someone else would then sometimes tell her quietly who is present.

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