picturing faces

[miss fortune]

I hadn't ever thought about the topic until someone brought it up on a podcast that I was listening to... apparently most people can picture the faces of those who they know when they aren't even present

I've been trying and trying over the past few weeks and I can picture a few aspects of the people, like their hair or their manner of speaking, but I can't put their damned faces together in my head. This annoys me because it had never occurred to me somehow that being able to picture people was something that's done... that's why there's pictures, dammit!

I've been running an informal poll on coworkers, family and such in real life to see how normal this is (apparently everyone else can picture faces so far ) and have decided to try it out on a different group.

as a note I can usually recognize people when I meet them again if I know them, but if I've only met them once I'm doomed... I used to accidentally pitch customers again as if they were new customers... occasionally citing that I'd helped out their coworker (them)

 

[Lady_X]

yikes that's craziness

 

[Rail Tracer]

How do I describe it, I can put the features of people I've met altogether, but I guess you can say that I take a vague snapshot of those people.

I tend to automatically tie images (or things) of people to names or tie images (or things) of people to places. It makes things easier to remember.

And boy, do I remember people I really don't need to remember.

 

[miss fortune]

yikes that's craziness

it hadn't previously occurred to me that it was unusual in any way

funny thing is that I can remember other things about the people who I can't recognize... I had one customer ask me to describe his "coworker" and I was able to tell him his wife and daughter's names and what town he lived in and such... just couldn't tell that it was him

How do I describe it, I can put the features of people I've met altogether, but I guess you can say that I take a vague snapshot of those people.

I tend to automatically tie images (or things) of people to names or tie images (or things) of people to places. It makes things easier to remember.

And boy, do I remember people I really don't need to remember.

oooh... you work like an address book in a cell phone!

 

[Fidelia]

That's interesting! I had that conversation once with one of my friends and she also expressed the same kind of surprise that you did that other people do see faces in their heads. So, I asked one of my male friends and said, "You know how you can see people you know in your head and even picture them moving around or doing stuff, right?" He got a goofy look on his face and said, "Oh yeah". I wasn't thinking about it at all in a sexual sense, but it was clear that he was! I find for me, it depends how well I know them, how memorable their features are and how striking the meeting was to me (or important it was to me to remember). There are some people I've met once whom I can picture easily, and others who are a little fuzzy or changeable in my head.

 

[prplchknz]

not usually if anything i hear their voice.

 

[Rail Tracer]

oooh... you work like an address book in a cell phone!

If it wasn't for being able to keep phone numbers on cell phones, I might need to have to remember most of them. The thing is, I don't.

Nothing special, really. Some people have photographic memory (I don't.) Some people are able to pinpoint the exact location of a passage of a book reading it only once (I don't). People are able to read a chapter of a book just once and remember most of what went on in the chapter (I can't... I have to read it a few times.) And dear do I say I suck at auditory instructions. The worst thing you can do to me is given me auditory instructions or an auditory (only) lecture.

It is a different pain in itself though.... you forget many important things for remembering so many vague "unimportant" things.

 

[gromit]

Hm. I sort of can, but then when I try to "look" at it, it goes away.

 

[INTP]

i have a hard time doing this and im pretty sure its the reason for my totally awful face memory. combine this with not being that good at distinguishing people from each other, i mean i often see people in crowds that look just like someone i know and not being sure if its the same person or someone who just looks like him/her. being an INTP and not really caring to go talk to the person to find out(since it would probably be wrong person 99% of times), i need to act as if i didnt see the person just in case that if he happened to be the actual person, he wouldnt notice that i noticed him and not come to talk . another example of this happened a while ago when i was in a supermarket with my friend, there was some blonde chick working there, then she went away from my radar and like a minute later another person about the same height and blonde came and i thought it was the same person, but my friend just laughed, seconds later the actually person i saw first came and i noticed that they didnt look that alike after all . one other thing like this is that at work if some customer wants some help and i have to go to back room to go get someone or something, i have really hard time identifying the person later, usually i need to deduce who the person is based on gestures(when i look at them and come towards, they act like they are expecting me to give them the answer they wanted). but recently i noticed that i can use their clothing to help me, so when i leave i need to tell my self for example "beige pants, black jacket" and need to say that quite many times(or all the time) when im not seeing the other person. also i think it has a lot to do with the fact that i cant visualize things in very vividly. some people say that they can almost see the thing that they visualize, but for me its more like when you see an spoon that is half behind a milk carton and know what the spoon looks like and thus know what the part of the spoon not seen looks like, how its positioned(based on what you do see) etc. but what i can imagine well is the movement of objects and stuff like that. i had this little mind game when i was younger where i imagined what smaller kids(currently in my visual field) would look like at my age or bit older and that i was good at. oh but i can imagine a picture i have taken of a person quite well, but have really hard time recognizing a person in real life who i have only seen a pictures of(they often look like completely different people to me in real life).

[MENTION=5418]Lady X[/MENTION] no this is craziness

 

[King sns]

yea, definitely can... my brain is just a picture book though... have more trouble translating to words sometimes... feel like I'm describing pictures rather than thinking the words directly... makes for a pretty strong memory in general ... ... I think. Can hear their voice as well as prp mentioned....

 

[Lady_X]

i don't actually see faces...maybe i'm misunderstanding. i have strong memories of what things look like but i don't feel like i'm visualizing them...my brain actually hurts trying to figure this out. i do know that i can sit and talk with someone looking at them right in their eyes and later when asked i may say they had dark blonde hair and someone else will say no...it was actually black. and remembering what they wore? i mean...sometimes i see it but others not at all. i could meet my bf for lunch and later be asked what he was wearing and i'd have no idea.

so...i wonder if i actually visually see people i've known or am i just remembering being with them? i do know i could pick their face out of a pile of pictures....the details of their faces are not lost. i just don't know if i'm seeing them when i remember them...not in the way i do when i physically look at something.

and yeah intp that's the craziness haha that's hilarious you do that.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Prosopagnosia?

 

[JAVO]

I picture a person's face and body language if I interact with a person on the phone, in writing, or even just think about interacting with them. It's automatic, like a reality-focused dream.

 

[miss fortune]

it kind of bothers me that I can't even picture the faces of the people that I'm closest to... like the boyfriend. I see him every day and have for years- we live in the same house for goodness sake! I can't picture his face though... he shaved his beard off about 8 months ago and when I came home from work I jumped a bit at first because it took a few minutes for me to realize that it was actually him. I hadn't realized that a good portion of how I'd recognized him was his beard

I once mistakened another similarly colored man of the same build wearing a jacket that was just like his and with the same beard as him at first when returning at a concert with drinks... it was kind of awkward, especially since he was right behind me

Yesterday I kept trying to remember what my sis looked like because she was meeting us all at a restaurant... my own sister who lived with us for about 8 months last year... I mistakened an asian chick for her at first because they had the same build, dressed the same and had their hair dyed the same... yeah... not cool

never had realized that other people didn't do the same though

 

[Jaguar]

it kind of bothers me that I can't even picture the faces of the people that I'm closest to... like the boyfriend.

That's shocking to me.
I'm a visual thinker, and then some. I also hear music - right now, Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve is playing in my head.

 

[Lexicon]

I can picture faces, but voices are more distinct/constant. I would have trouble really articulating in words what I'm seeing, though. A lot of it would be kinda dreamlike; various blurry film reels.

 

[prplchknz]

why do i keep reading this thread as: plastering feces?

 

[miss fortune]

That's shocking to me.
I'm a visual thinker, and then some. I also hear music - right now, Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve is playing in my head.

I've been realizing how auditorily my mind works over the past few months... I really hadn't realized how much I base how I operate on sense of hearing before then. I think of the rhythms of how someone speaks and their voice most of the time... probably too many linguistics classes

 

[Lady_X]

I can picture faces, but voices are more distinct/constant. I would have trouble really articulating in words what I'm seeing, though. A lot of it would be kinda dreamlike; various blurry film reels.

yes yes...i visualize things in the same way i remember dreams which i have a feeling is more of a feeling impression than a visual one even tho...i consider myself a visual person.

or maybe i'm just skewing everything in my head.

i just imagined the mona lisa...perfect fine easy...just like that...
everythings like that...i think i was expecting it to be the same as seeing it in front of your face...omg i'm going to stop talking now i have no idea wth i'm saying.

 

[highlander]

I never even imagined that there were people who couldn't do this. I remember faces from 30 years ago clear as day. I have a pretty good memory for people's faces even if I haven't been good at remembering a lot of other things worth a damn. So, I'll remember the face but I can never remember the name. It is oftentimes embarrassing.