It’s not that the person who can never remember meeting you is snobby or even absent-minded; they may have a fascinating – and often difficult – neurological condition called prosopagnosia, known more commonly as face blindness.
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# Prosopagnosia: Face Blindness Explained
Ever wondered what it would be like to not recognize your own family members' faces? This episode dives deep into prosopagnosia, or face blindness—a fascinating neurological condition that's way more common than you'd think, affecting about one in fifty people to some degree. Josh and Chuck explore how people normally recognize faces as complete wholes in mere microseconds, then walk through what happens when that system breaks down, revealing incredible coping strategies and the surprising overlap with other rare disorders like akinetopsia, where people can't perceive motion at all. You'll meet people like Brad Pitt and neuroscientist Oliver Sacks who've dealt with this condition, and learn about the creative ways people navigate life without a crucial superpower we all take for granted.
Awakenings
1990
2h 0m
★ 7.8
"Oliver Sacks actually had it, the famed neurologist who Awakenings was based on his work. — Referenced as a film based on Oliver Sacks' work; Sacks had prosopagnosia."
— Chuck
California's Gold
1991
★ 8.0
"I first heard about this incident while watching an episode of Hewlett-Houser's California Gold, a show on public television. — Mentioned in listener mail as a PBS show where information about the Japanese shelling of California was learned."
Happiness
1998
2h 20m
★ 7.4
"It'd be kind of like watching a double feature of happiness and life during wartime. — Referenced as an example of how watching a film with replaced actors would be disorienting, similar to prosopagnosia."
— Josh
Life During Wartime
2010
R
1h 37m
★ 5.9
"That was the sequel to happiness where he kept the same characters but replaced them with all new actors. — Discussed as a sequel with new actors playing the same characters, used to illustrate the experience of prosopagnosia."
— Chuck
Memento
2000
1h 53m
★ 8.2
"in Memento, you know, the dude in Memento came up with a system. — Used as an example of how someone develops a system to identify people despite face recognition difficulties."
— Chuck
"There was this episode of the office where Dwight's talking about how his grandfather fought in World War II. — Referenced an episode where Dwight reveals his Nazi grandfather, creating a jarring comedic turn."
— Josh
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