Has it ever happened to you that you see someone and you are unable to recognize who they are? Many times it's because you just don't know it or maybe you don't remember it correctly, however, there is a small scenario where it's not that simple. In many of my posts I have told you about some very specific disorders that affect our brain in such a way that they alter the way it captures and processes information; in fact I have also told you about a disorder similar to the one I am going to tell you about today, a disorder that affects the brain of those who suffer from it so seriously that it simply makes them unable to recognize the faces of others.
Imagine how complicated it would be to walk around the world without ever identifying the faces of the people with whom we live, at a certain point it would be like being blind in a very specific aspect of life, that is to say just think about it to see someone's face and see nothing but a stranger; for that is precisely what causes prosopagnosia.
It should be noted that although prosopagnosia prevents us from correctly identifying other people's faces, this disorder has no connection whatsoever with our visual system, it is purely a disorder that affects and alters the way in which the brain processes information.
Prosopagnosia
As I mentioned before, people who are generally unable to identify the faces of others usually suffer from this disorder, a disorder that does not affect the visual system itself, that is to say, the eyes, but on the contrary, affects the neuro-receptors associated with the processing of images captured by the visual system. If we sum it up, it's not that we didn't see the face, it's that we simply can't recognize it, because the way our brain processes information makes it blurry when it's stored in our memory and gradually degrades it even more.
…also called face blindness, is a cognitive disorder of face perception in which the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition), is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing (e.g., object discrimination) and intellectual functioning (e.g., decisionmaking) remain intact.
Wikipedia
As Wikipedia and other sources that I consulted while collecting information point out, prosopagnosia not only affects the way we perceive others but in some more extreme cases it also makes it impossible for us to recognize our own face. Yes, something totally bizarre, just imagine living from a certain point of life where from there you will be unable to know what you look like.
The specific brain area usually associated with prosopagnosia is the fusiform gyrus, which activates specifically in response to faces. The functionality of the fusiform gyrus allows most people to recognize faces in more detail than they do similarly complex inanimate objects.
Wikipedia
Basically, people who have this type of disease have their visual processing system severely altered, and that is what prevents them from recognizing people's faces, it is as if they are unable to put together the "pieces" and features that each person has in their faces to form a clear image that helps to distinguish them. It could then be said that when people with this type of disease see someone else they see their face as something abstract that they are unable to distinguish. However, in not so severe cases, patients are able to recognize the characteristic features of each person separately but are unable to form a collective image, the good thing about this, is that from those isolated features that they are able to distinguish they can establish a certain process to identify and separate each person. For example, it has been determined that in some cases the color of the skin, the Asian features, and the sexes can be recognized and from there, the patients usually have a certain type of notion in how to distinguish some faces.
A remarkable fact that perhaps relieves them as much as I did when I discovered it, is that this type of disease belongs to the group of diseases you are born with and that it can only be developed by someone else if some external factor intervenes, that is to say, unless it is caused by trauma, a stroke, or a neurodegenerative disease it is almost impossible to acquire a disorder of this type.
How to recognize someone you can't identify
The human being is, it's a species in constant development, and capable of overcoming any kind of difficulties, and just as it happens with people who have lost some of their senses, people who suffer from this horrible condition also develop certain types of "advantages" that help them to overcome the suffering of this condition.
If we take blind people as an example, they are unable to see others, that why they develop an incredible sense of hearing and touch and when combined, makes the task of recognizing others a little easier. Since people with prosopagnosia are not blind but simply do not recognize faces, they often develop an incredible factor of recognition of additional features and characteristics. Basically what I mean is that people with this disorder develop an identification system through which they can identify others based on the slightest differentiating characteristic and trait.
Another factor that helps people with this disorder to recognize others is that their brain generates more intense emotional responses. For example, for a person with this disease, recognizing their mother or a loved one will be extremely simple because a very intense emotional factor associated with that loved one will have been developed in their brain. This is because even though their brain cannot process the image of that loved one's face, their other nervous processing systems will create some kind of unconscious trait that will allow them to recognize certain people beyond not knowing what they look like.
All these factors tend to develop as they are the only way to deal with this type of disorder, since there is no cure at present, so the only thing that can be done is to help people suffering from this type of disease to generate their own recognition system.
Final Words
Even though this type of disorder does not trigger any kind of advantage, in my opinion, it represents a very valuable point that should be further developed on a social level and that is to see all people as equal and only generate distinctive features by the simple fact of identifying each one. In short, this type of disorder, which I do not misunderstand, I consider to be extremely horrible, can become a symbol of how society should evolve, that is to say, to a point where appearance is something secondary and the real value of people lies in other determining factors.
Prosopagnosia makes it impossible for people to recognize the faces of others, but not impossible for them to see others.