The Crowd of Blurred Faces: The Struggles of the Prosopagnosic
I first learned how about prosopagnosia aboard a metro in New York City when I was 11. There was an ad on the wall that I was facing, instructing me that if I did not recognize the faces on the poster I should get checked out for prosopagnosia. The faces on this graphic included that my younger self gazed curiously at included Dwayne Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, Joe Biden, and other celebrities. Even though I was young I immediately recognized most of the faces. I nudged my dad, who was sitting next to me, with my elbow asking him what this meant. He was not an expert on this topic so he naturally did not have a real or factual response to my question. Recently, I read in an article about how famous actor, Brad Pitt, had this condition. I was reminded of my interest for the topic and decided to look in deeper.
From news.cuanschutz.edu
Prosopagnosia is a condition where people have difficulty recognizing faces of others, including their loved ones. Although the main symptom for this diagnosis is the inability to recognize faces, there are different types of complications, variations, and coexisting disorders. A study by Cortex in 2023 found that around 3% of people tested met the criteria to be diagnosed with prosopagnosia. The Harvard Medical News explains that this is equivalent to 10 million Americans.
There are two ways that a person may have acquired prosopagnosia. The first version is congenital prosopagnosia (the one that Brad Pitt has) which is where a person gets the condition genetically. When brain scans are done on patients with congenital prosopagnosia nothing seems out of the ordinary although the person still has difficulty identifying faces. Furthermore the diagnosis for this variations is typically done in a persons childhood. The second type is acquired prosopagnosia and, as stated in the name, these patients are diagnosed with prosopagnosia usually later on in their life after a type of head injury or other traumatic event. Unlike congenital prosopagnosia, in this version brain scans clearly show that the right fusiform gyrus and occipitotemporal region has been damaged. Studies have shown that congenital prosopagnosia is found in 2.5% of the population, making it the more common of the two variations of this condition. This number would translate into about 90% of those diagnosed have congenital prosopagnosia compared o around 10% that got this condition after a brain injury.
Although it may seem like a minor inconvenience to some, a condition like prosopagnosia deeply affects the lives of millions of people daily. Of course the biggest dilemma posed by this condition is not being able to recognize family, friends, and care takers. Patients with a more severe version of this condition are usually effected in this manner, thankfully not all of those diagnosed with prosopagnosia have to deal with these heartbreaking situation. Unfortunately almost all of the prosopagnosic community have strained relationships with distant relatives or friends because of there limited ability of recognition. This can complicate and grow into other conditions such as social anxiety, embarrassment, lower self-esteem, and isolation. A perilous physical threat that come with this condition is the high risk of misidentifications, which can lead to kidnapping, harassment, abuse, scams, etc. Furthermore, keeping a job is often difficult for those with prosopagnosia as they can not identify who is superior to them, inferior to them, and who is their equal. This problem leads to inappropriate behavior next to colleagues whose positions they could have confused with another's. All in all, it is extremely important that the prosopagnosic community is treated with respect, understanding, and patience. We need to understand that some things they can not control no matter how hard they try.
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Specifically diving into Brad Pitt's case, he was never truly diagnosed. Although he has stated publicly in an interview in 2013 that he believes that he has prosopagnosia. He explains that throughout his years he has felt embarrassment and loneliness because of his condition, however there are no verified medical reports publicly available to prove these statements. Could this be a case of celebrates trying to save their reputations by all means possible? Who knows, but either way this situation has brought much needed attention and awareness to prosopagnosia, a condition that people ignored beforehand.- National Institute of Health
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