‘Face blindness’ isn’t a yes/no thing According to a new study, face blindness could be more common that we used to think. Scientists say we need new diagnoses to catch those who have a mild version. “HUMANS Less than half a second: that is how long it normally takes for the brain to observe the nose, eyes, mouth and other facial characteristics of a person, and decipher who they are. But for some people it is not so easy. A percentage of the population suffers from a phenomenon known as face blindness or prosopagnosia, which makes it difficult for them to recognise faces. Some people have the condition to such an extreme extent that they have difficulties differentiating faces from objects, or even identifying their own face in a mirror. Astudy conducted by Harvard Medical School scientists demonstrates that the phenomenon might be more common than we used to think. Scientists previously estimated that beween 2% and 2.5% of the world population suffers from face blindness. The Harvard results indicate that 1 in 33. or 3.08% of the world population meets the criteria for the condition But the causes may be different between cases, explains Psychiatry Professor Joseph Degutis, the first author of the study published in the scientific journal Cortex. Degutis distinguishes between two types of face blindness. One type is due to injuries in specific areas of the brain, influencing only around 1 in 30,000 Americans. The other type is a permanent genetic or developmental condition. And it is much more common, the professor explains The results of the study are based on questionnaires and tests of 3341 individuals who were asked about problems recognising faces in their everyday lives and also tested for their ability to recognise familiar faces and get to know new ones. Approximately 100 people turned out to have some kind of face blindness, with a small group of 31 people with severe face blindness, but also a group of 72 with a less severe version of the condition. The Harvard researchers now believe that we should consider face blindness more as a scale than a yes/no condition, as the degree of severity may vary a lot, and previous criteria for the condition have been too rigorous. “The majority of scientists have used much too rigorous diagnostic criteria, and many people with severe recognition problems in their everyday lives have incorrectly been told that they do not have prosopagnosia. It is important to expand the diagnosis,” says Professor Joseph Degutis to Harvard News. He emphasises that appreciation of the problem could be key to assisting individuals, “because just knowing you have a mild form of face blindness can help you take steps that reduce the negative influence.” While there is no ‘cure’ for face blindness, various methods can reduce its inconvenience, such as telling your colleagues about it, and receiving training to help use people’s voices or body language to tell them apart.