Why it's difficult to tell people apart | Page 4 | Serious Discussion | Guild Forums

kittycross

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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 4:30 pm

And children with beard would be totally freaky.
I don't really like facial hair to begin with

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 4:38 pm

kittycross

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I don't think it's fair to blame it on the person or to assume closed-mindedness. Some people just don't see the differences in faces. sweatdrop

This.

Also, there's a thing called Face Blindness. Some people can't recognize faces at all. (not the same thing, but similar idea taken to the extreme)

Prospagnosia Research Centers at Harvard

Face blindness is an entirely different thing than not being able to tell individuals of the same race or ethnic background apart.
Face blindness is neurological condition usually related to brain damage and is usually accompanied by other recognition impairment like car recognition and such.

I mentioned the artist Chuck Close before because he has face blindness. Ironically, he works mainly in portraiture and his work as a color theorist. In a recent interview he said that he couldn't recognize someone in front of him, but could recognize pictures. Every time he sees some one seeing their face is like meeting a stranger.

Race wouldn't have anything to do with Face Blindness.

Sure it's not fair to assume that someone is close-minded or blame a person for their own choices and behavior, but life really isn't fair.
I'm really curious how people get this idea that the world is a kind and gentle place of fairness.

If you're embarrassed now by how you've visually assessed people in the past, then just take responsibility and and act in a way you feel is appropriate.

Excuses will not solve anything

I have developmental apperceptive prosopagnosia, so perhaps I don't quite understand, but I really don't think it's a matter of "responsibility" or "excuses"; I think there are multiple factors that affect how well people can discern faces. Ignorance may or may not be one of them.

LabTech Kestin

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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 4:41 pm

kittycross

Aneyana

Kestin Sha

I don't think it's fair to blame it on the person or to assume closed-mindedness. Some people just don't see the differences in faces. sweatdrop

This.

Also, there's a thing called Face Blindness. Some people can't recognize faces at all. (not the same thing, but similar idea taken to the extreme)

Prospagnosia Research Centers at Harvard

Face blindness is an entirely different thing than not being able to tell individuals of the same race or ethnic background apart.
Face blindness is neurological condition usually related to brain damage and is usually accompanied by other recognition impairment like car recognition and such.

I mentioned the artist Chuck Close before because he has face blindness. Ironically, he works mainly in portraiture and his work as a color theorist. In a recent interview he said that he couldn't recognize someone in front of him, but could recognize pictures. Every time he sees some one seeing their face is like meeting a stranger.

Race wouldn't have anything to do with Face Blindness.

Sure it's not fair to assume that someone is close-minded or blame a person for their own choices and behavior, but life really isn't fair.
I'm really curious how people get this idea that the world is a kind and gentle place of fairness.

If you're embarrassed now by how you've visually assessed people in the past, then just take responsibility and and act in a way you feel is appropriate.

Excuses will not solve anything

None of this is overt, though. This isn't stuff you can act on.

Unless you're telling someone to leave their community and move to another town, state, or country where the racial demographics are different, or have someone sit in front a computer screen and look at pictures of different people for hours a day (not surfing - sitting and looking at one after the other after the other), then their FFA for other races is simply not going to light up like it would when they saw someone of their own race (or whatever race they see the most of).

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 4:43 pm

LabTech Kestin

I don't think it's fair to blame it on the person or to assume closed-mindedness. Some people just don't see the differences in faces. sweatdrop

Thank you. Some of the comments have been borderline insulting by blaming it on laziness. confused

My high school didn't have a single person of asian descent. My college has one and I've never talked to him. If I insult someone by not being able to tell which part of Asia your family is from, I'm sorry but it's just not something I've learned and it's not something I'm likely to learn anytime soon because my area is like 97% white.

Shiori Miko

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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 4:45 pm

Okay, yeah, I think I'm gonna move this to SD. >_>

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 4:57 pm

Shiori Miko

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I don't think it's fair to blame it on the person or to assume closed-mindedness. Some people just don't see the differences in faces. sweatdrop

Thank you. Some of the comments have been borderline insulting by blaming it on laziness. confused

My high school didn't have a single person of asian descent. My college has one and I've never talked to him. If I insult someone by not being able to tell which part of Asia your family is from, I'm sorry but it's just not something I've learned and it's not something I'm likely to learn anytime soon because my area is like 97% white.

It's not about being able to tell if someone is Chinese vs. Japanese or whatever. It's about recognizing an individual after seeing them.

Little Miss Fortune
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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 5:11 pm

Little Miss Fortune

Shiori Miko

LabTech Kestin

I don't think it's fair to blame it on the person or to assume closed-mindedness. Some people just don't see the differences in faces. sweatdrop

Thank you. Some of the comments have been borderline insulting by blaming it on laziness. confused

My high school didn't have a single person of asian descent. My college has one and I've never talked to him. If I insult someone by not being able to tell which part of Asia your family is from, I'm sorry but it's just not something I've learned and it's not something I'm likely to learn anytime soon because my area is like 97% white.

It's not about being able to tell if someone is Chinese vs. Japanese or whatever. It's about recognizing an individual after seeing them.

Sort of.

It's more about being able to tell the difference between two people.

For example, let's say I wanted to do an experiment to test this.

What I might do is show two pictures on a screen at a time and you have to quickly decide if they are two different people. I might record how long it takes you to decide whether it's the same person in both pictures or if it's two different people. Or if that ends up being too simple. My hypothesis might be:

People who do not see [X] number of people of [race] a day will take a significantly longer period of time to decide whether or not a person was in both pictures than a person who does see [x] number of people of [race] a day.

Because it's not like people literally cannot tell people apart. If you have two people stand side by side and don't move and you look at them for a few moments, you will discern the differences. Even with identical twins - one's nostril is slightly bigger than the other, one has a zit on her cheek, the left eyebrow is a few millimeters higher. But in order to notice those differences, you need to consciously think, analyze, and process. That's not realistic. People don't stand still for two minutes in order for you to observe all the nuances of their face.

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 5:58 pm

Little Miss Fortune

Shiori Miko

LabTech Kestin

I don't think it's fair to blame it on the person or to assume closed-mindedness. Some people just don't see the differences in faces. sweatdrop

Thank you. Some of the comments have been borderline insulting by blaming it on laziness. confused

My high school didn't have a single person of asian descent. My college has one and I've never talked to him. If I insult someone by not being able to tell which part of Asia your family is from, I'm sorry but it's just not something I've learned and it's not something I'm likely to learn anytime soon because my area is like 97% white.

It's not about being able to tell if someone is Chinese vs. Japanese or whatever. It's about recognizing an individual after seeing them.

Which I still can't do. That happened over the summer, I met a girl but couldn't remember her face. It took a few days of hanging out with her before I was able to tell someone more than "she has brown hair." And she was also white which is the most common race where I live, so when you bring in what Cleo has told us and realize how bad I am at telling people who the same hair color apart being unable to tell someone of a different race apart isn't that hard to believe.

Shiori Miko

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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:08 pm

Shiori Miko

Little Miss Fortune

Shiori Miko

LabTech Kestin

I don't think it's fair to blame it on the person or to assume closed-mindedness. Some people just don't see the differences in faces. sweatdrop

Thank you. Some of the comments have been borderline insulting by blaming it on laziness. confused

My high school didn't have a single person of asian descent. My college has one and I've never talked to him. If I insult someone by not being able to tell which part of Asia your family is from, I'm sorry but it's just not something I've learned and it's not something I'm likely to learn anytime soon because my area is like 97% white.

It's not about being able to tell if someone is Chinese vs. Japanese or whatever. It's about recognizing an individual after seeing them.

Which I still can't do. That happened over the summer, I met a girl but couldn't remember her face. It took a few days of hanging out with her before I was able to tell someone more than "she has brown hair." And she was also white which is the most common race where I live, so when you bring in what Cleo has told us and realize how bad I am at telling people who the same hair color apart being unable to tell someone of a different race apart isn't that hard to believe.

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