Not everyone can recognize faces

Imagine entering a boardroom and meeting for the first time each of the company’s 15 directors. These are important people in your life; you’ll be expected to recognize them when you next meet.

That’s not going to happen, so your coping mechanism kicks in: It’s no problem remembering the bald guy who stands 6-foot-6, the woman with the mop of gray hair, the guy with his arm in a cast, and the striking blonde. But the other 11 pose a challenge, so you look for distinctions that you can remember: American flag lapel pin, green tie, glasses on a chain, scarf and so on.

You’re set for today.

When you speak to these people at the coffee break, you’ll know who everyone is. But if you run into any one of them tomorrow, when they will have changed clothes, you’re a dead man.

This scenario probably sounds bizarre to you. Of course it does-you can recognize faces. Pity those like me with prosopagnosia, who cannot.

I suppose I should have discovered my condition when, as a teenager, I signed up to earn minimum wage in return for taking a day-long battery of experimental tests at the Educational Testing Service. I spent eight hours doing perfectly well on an assortment of tests until I was seated in a chair with a slide projector to my side. I was told that I’d be shown pictures of four faces identified as A, B, C and D. When each face appeared on the screen, I was to press a corresponding button. Twenty-five presses later, the outraged administrator emerged from the back room: “That’s ridiculous! You did worse than random! We’re not going to pay you if you don’t take our tests seriously!” He insisted that I take the test again, which I obediently did. I stared at those four faces: one was long and narrow; one was shorter and fatter; I tried to pick out characteristics for the other two. I retook the test and managed to

get 1 in 4 right, exactly matching random chance. The administrator wasn’t pleased, but I got my paycheck.

I always knew I was bad with faces, but I figured it was my fault: I didn’t care enough about people, or I wasn’t paying enough attention. But no matter how hard I tried to imprint a new acquaintance’s features on my brain, it didn’t work. Inevitably, some stranger would say hello to me in a coffee shop, and I’d have no idea whom I was talking to.

I actually have a relatively mild case of prosopagnosia. Unlike some people, I recognize my own face; I don’t have to scrunch up my nose to be able to identify myself among the sea of faces in the mirror of a public restroom. And I’m not like Dr. P. in Oliver Sacks’ book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. I recognize my wife and kids (and anyone else whom I see repeatedly) without much trouble.

But I’m hopeless at parties. My compassionate wife now often whispers the names of people into my ear as they approach, or announces, “Susan, you remember Mark.” I’m lost during movies with large casts of characters. Sixty minutes into the film, I’ll be asking, “Is that the evil brother?” and my wife will gently tell me, “No, dear, that’s the next-door neighbor.” And Game of Thrones is completely impossible. Except for the dwarf and the dragon girl, all I see are medieval guys with facial hair.

Business settings pose the biggest challenges. Years ago, I joined a large law firm as an associate, and the managing partner swung by my office to greet me on my first day of work. The next day I was downstairs in the gym, intent on meeting as many of my new colleagues as I could. I went up to a stranger in the locker room: “Hi! I’m Mark Herrmann. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“We met yesterday. I’m the managing partner of the firm.”

I no longer introduce myself to strangers. It’s not worth the risk.

I didn’t realize that I might be suffering from some sort of disability until 2006, when an article in Time magazine described a study estimating that more than 5 million people in the United States suffer from so-called face blindness. My reaction was not surprise but relief: It wasn’t my disinterest in other people or failure to pay attention that caused me not to recognize faces. There might be a medical reason for my condition. Eureka!

I now know that I suffer from a hereditary condition. That eases my mind, but my shortcoming still seems to baffle everyone else. At work I manage a team of roughly 150 people, who quite reasonably expect me to know who they are. How can I explain it to them? They recognize me; I should recognize them. That does have a certain logic to it.

At long last, however, my fellow sufferers and I may be coming out of the closet. Chuck Close, the renowned portrait artist, has prosopagnosia. The inability to recognize faces must not interfere with the ability to paint them; I must admit that even I don’t understand how that can be. And, earlier this year, Brad Pitt acknowledged his face blindness.

Brad Pitt! If I ever met him, I’d love to swap some prosopagnosia war stories with him. The trouble, of course, is that even if I saw him on the street, I wouldn’t recognize him.