prosopagnosia
an inability to recognize faces
TRANSLATION
prosopagnosia = Prosopagnosie (Gesichtserkennungsschwäche oder Gesichtsblindheit bezeichnet die Unfähigkeit, Personen anhand ihres Gesichtes zu erkennen)
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
“The actor Brad Pitt said in a recent interview that he has PROSOPAGNOSIA, a rare neurological disorder commonly referred to as face blindness. While Mr. Pitt, 58, has never been formally diagnosed with the condition, he said in an interview with GQ that he had struggled for years to recognize people’s faces.”
Dani Blum - New York Times (8th July 2022)
Did you
know?
prosopagnosia
noun
- a failure to recognize faces, also commonly known as "face blindness" or “facial agnosia”. Prosopagnosia can result from stroke, traumatic brain injury, or certain neurodegenerative diseases.
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WORD ORIGIN
The term "prosopagnosia" has Greek roots: prosopon meaning "face” and agnosia meaning "without knowledge”. Thus, prosopagnosia translates literally as "without knowledge of faces."
It first appeared in the medical literature in a 1947 paper by the neurologist Joachim Bodamer.
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SUPER-RECOGNIZERS
The opposite of prosopagnosia is superior face-recognition ability. People with this ability are called "super-recognizers".
Britain is one of the most heavily surveilled nations on earth, with an estimated one surveillance camera per 11 citizens. It has cutting-edge technology for visually identifying criminals, and software so sensitive it can scan an airport for a tattoo or a pinkie (kleiner Finger) ring.
In September, 2018, a team of British super-recognizers used security footage and flight records to track two Russian men who stand accused of attempted murder against Sergei V. Skripal featuring the nerve agent Novichok.
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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:
“People afflicted with PROSOPAGNOSIA have to rely on other cues like tone-of-voice or personal clothing to recognise who they are speaking to.”
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