Face Blindness - When Every Face Looks the Same
All of us have trouble, from time to time, putting a name to a face. But what if you couldn't tell one face from another because they all looked the same? It may sound like science fiction, but CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a CBS News contributor, says it's a very real problem for millions of people.
His face may not be familiar, but his books should be. Neurologist Oliver Sackshas written 10 best sellers about the way the mind works. One, "Awakenings," became a movie - and Robin Williams' character is based on Dr. Sacks.
Now, Sacks is revealing his own brain disorder -an inability to recognize faces.
"I've had difficulty recognizing faces for as long as I can remember," Sacks said.
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Every face looks pretty much like every other face. It's called face blindness, or prosopagnosia.
Here's how Sacks describes what he's seeing.
"I can see your expressions and your attention and where your eyes look. I see all the features but it doesn't quite add up to a unique image."
Someone who is face blind sees the features, but can't place the face.
"Sometimes I kiss or embrace strangers thinking that I know them," Sacks said.
It's so bad that when Sacks wrote a book reminiscing about his favorite uncle, he used a picture of someone else.
Sacks said his cousins wrote him "indignantly" saying, "are you mad? That is not our father and it looks nothing like our father!" Sacks fixed it in the paperback.
He's able to recognize people, if he has enough clues.
Harvard researchers studying the disorder estimate one out of fifty people have it.
Prosopagnosia Research Centers at Harvard University
With regard to face blindness, doctors can point to a particular area of the brain and say it comes from here. Sacks said if that area is stimulated, "the person will hallucinate faces."
The sufferers include the artist Chuck Close,who gained world-wide renown with his portraits of faces.
Close told the World Science Festival, "We have to prove to the people we see that we care about them even though we're not going to recognize their faces or even remember their names."
It's one reason why he paints family like his daughter Maggie, and his wife Leslie.
"There are millions of us, of my sort, around who require if not help, some sort of understanding, some sort of tolerance," Sacks said.
By going public, Sacks hopes face blindness will be accepted much like dyslexia - a little recognition for those who can't recognize.