Is there a good test for this I could take (preferably online)? I suspect I have a mild case and would like an objective test.
(There's the bizarre phenomenon, which people other than me have reported, how some people seem to consistently resemble photos of themselves, while others don't so much: they're almost a different person in photos. I think this phenomenon may also have to do with the face in action, but I'm just speculating wildly.)
> There's the bizarre phenomenon, which people other than me have reported, how some people seem to consistently resemble photos of themselves, while others don't so much: they're almost a different person in photos.
I'm also just speculating wildly, but this might have something to do with (monoscopic) photography removing depth cues, which is also a factor in the phenomenon of "the camera adds ten pounds". Different lighting and some approaches to makeup and clothing can exaggerate or diminish this effect.
There used to be a great face blindness test online where it first showed you a bunch of full pictures of heads to memorize, then for the quiz it showed cutouts of just the face. I had no idea that I was relying on all these non-face features until they were dramatically removed for that test. (Which I bombed.)
I did cheat a little bit on the first one by looking up their names on IMDB, because I can usually better remember which movie they were in and what role they played, than the name of the actor.
The random noise made it harder, but if you squint and move your head around while looking at it, you can remove a lot of noise, it's a nice little "analog" trick for situations like that.
But 34%.. Do you think you suffer from prosopagnosia? Or was there something with the test that made it extra hard for you?
I do.
I once watched Up in the Air and had to ask at the end which one was George Clooney. (In my defense, I had previously seen him in Syriana, where he had a beard. Hair and facial hair are the crutches I tend to use to recognize people.) Needless to say, on the Famous Faces test I had trouble with anyone less memorable than, say, Barack Obama.