Hard News: Have you met thingy?
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Russell, that facial recognition things sounds interestingly autistic. Perhaps your strengths are exceptional auditory and tekkie ability instead. I've often wondered how people can hear so much more than me in music and be so entranced by frustrating appliances like computers and iphones. But I never forget a face.
There is a saying that we are all a bit autistic these days - although I imagine those on the spectrum would object to us all jumping on their bandwagon.
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Russell, that facial recognition things sounds interestingly autistic.
I do wonder ... but ...
although I imagine those on the spectrum would object to us all jumping on their bandwagon.
Then I think about that.
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There is a saying that we are all a bit autistic these days - although I imagine those on the spectrum would object to us all jumping on their bandwagon.
amen.
that said, i'm *completely useless* with remembering names. even members of my family. and i'm certain i'm not autistic, just absent-minded.
but i've always thought you to be somewhere on the spectrum there, mr. brown.
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Interesting.. as I'm exactly the same. Then combine it with my lack of hearing in noisy situations (pubs with loud music) and people really think I'm rude or snobbish.
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but i've always thought you to be somewhere on the spectrum there, mr. brown.
Really? Like every parent of ASD kids, I do think about it. But I have decidedly non-autistic traits too. "Neurodiverse" might be a better description.
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I definitely have the same thing too - but I think it leaves me in the opposite situation - not outgoing, but stuck in social situations where I remember faces but can't remember names
However I do seem to have vaguely mastered the act of introducing someone who's name I can't remember to someone who's I do and letting them fill in the missing piece " Have you met X?" (then let them introduce themself)
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On the spelling front, we are regaled in CHCH with massive and multiple ACT billboards stating “ZERO TOLERENCE FOR CRIME!” and “THE EMMISIONS TRADING SCHEME WILL RUIN N.Z.”
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Really?
yeah, but mostly i put it down to some type of unexplained connection. like maybe an unexplained propensity that can lead to ASD children.
i remember having a discussion with keith and david hayward where we couldn't work out how you're able to process information off the web as fast as you do. keith was baffled by it. i put it down to years of experience sifting noise for signal. either way, it's unusual.
another example. one of my uncles is extremely gregarious, and always has been. but my male cousin is quite far down the spectrum into 'non-social' (wouldn't look me in the eye when i met him, has lots of OCD behaviour).
in this context the only contributing factor to my cousin's autism i could imagine is my uncle's extremely high intelligence (he is far and away smarter than all my other uncles, who are mostly as bright as buttons).
so maybe there's a link science hasn't cottoned on to.
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Well you see that if they were "Act" they would know about lower case and not have to shout all the time
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There are some really good scientific online tests of face blindness - I think it's this page here:
http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/index.php
I got 50% on new faces, 80% on famous (therefore familiar) faces, which made a lot of sense (80% and over is "normal"). I still occasionally blank on familiar faces - it can be very embarrassing to enthusiastically greet someone I don't actually know.
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I often find it difficult to read emotions, tease out the complexities of social situations or pick up subtle signals. But that doesn't make me autistic: just male.
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I can relate to the disappearing names syndrome too Russell, though my memory for faces is not too bad. I am also outgoing and find most social situations fairly enjoyable but I just can't hang on to names. And it seems that if I forget someone's name after first meeting them it then becomes very difficult for me to remember it later on - I wonder whether this has to do with neural pathways, though my level of pop neuroscience ends with that phrase.
I had one friend at uni - years ago - whose name I mixed up constantly (kept calling her Catherine and her name was Rebecca - see I can remember it now!) At first she didn't mind so much but after about 6 months I think she got a little bitter about it but I just couldn't fix it in my mind. Very frustrating for us both.
PS: I had a quick look at the Act L&O Policy and this bit stuck out
Review police practices, productivity and eradicate political correctness.
I understand some persons' dislike of what they see as overly PC language (though for the most part it seems to me to be respectful language), but really?! Is eradicating political correctioness going to help law and order in NZ in any way...
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On that billboard issue...
National are promising 'ultra-fast' broadband, and apparently fibre to the home for lots of us.
But what is their definition of 'ultra-fast'?
100 Mbs?
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Oh, but you could be talking about me. I really think that there are a large number of people like us who genuinely have trouble with names. A bit suss in my case, since I have to remember 90 little peoples' names every day - and their parents and grandparents. I suspect there is a name for it, and I know how you feel. I so often feel really rude not remembering peoples' names, and I resort to calling them darling, love etc. Case in point: on Monday, we had a compulsory thingy for the Kindergarten Association which employs me. We regularly have these, and because there are over 300 employees, you have to pick one of several days to go on. So, I know, after 12 years of working for the AKA that there will be at least 75 of your teaching colleagues there. And after 12 years, one would expect that I would remember the names of people I see at least four times a year. I see different people at courses, and functions, and these compulsory days, in committee meetings etc. Many of the faces are the same ones I have been seeing over and over and over for all these years. But no. So I'm kissing and hugging people I am genuinely fond of, and calling them sweetheart, because, honestly, I just can't recall their name. It's maddening, and shameful. Because, you see, there are very few of my colleagues who don't know my name.
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It's strange. I'm the same. I can remember numbers, lots of numbers; my first phone number, the phone number of my old BBS, lots of IP addresses, house numbers, universal constants, but I struggle with pretty much everything else. I can't even tell you when I met my wife, or the street names of my childhood homes (I can remember the house numbers though). I can't remember if my daughter's bean-bag ball angel antics were when she was two or three or which house that was in.
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Re Brian Rudman (whoever he is) I'm also coming to the conclusion that reading the daily papers is increasingly hazardous to one's health. Apart from the wonderful Simon Collins, there is a lot in papers like the Herald - esp the op-ed pieces - that is toxic, negative, narrow minded, ignorant and mean spirited. Just plain depressing. Which is a pity as there is a great potential for the 4th estate to properly analyse and inform and provide a bit of vision. Or even reflect a NZ society that is actually positive, caring, generous, happy to live here and believes in a fair go.
So I'm pleased to see that the pundit.co.nz now does a daily news round up with some interesting informed links.
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I'm rubbish with remembering names and faces too! It's been especially bad since I've moved to Wellington and have met heaps of new people. Then I've had moments where I'm wondering why I haven't been introduced to someone, only to discover we've already met.
I got thinking about this when someone asked me why there weren't many people in my Flickr photos. It's not that I go out of the way to avoid photographing people, but somehow I find objects and things more interesting to look at than random people. Hmmm...
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I get accused of not introducing my wife deliberately all the time. It's not true - I forget everyone's names on the spot including Wossname's.
Do what I do, Russell...
"You introduce yourselves while I get the drinks" and then listen in.
Fortunately as a former waiter I don't tend to forget who's ordered what ;-)
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Is eradicating political correctioness going to help law and order in NZ in any way
You misunderstand. It's in the law and order policy because they mean to make it a criminal offence.
Really?
To my mind if it's not diagnosable it's just a personality.
I can admit a prejudice that every time anyone associated in any way with computers does something remotely socially odd, I'm like, 'Is that aspergers-y?'.
I'm terrible with names. I'm not sure I try properly - perhaps if we all did that American repeating-peoples names back as often as possible thing it would help.
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Me too: dreadful problem with both names and faces, which tends to reinforce my natural introversion - I often avoid conversations because I cannot quite remember who I am talking to.
Given how many fellow-sufferers are here, perhaps this condition is a trait of the sort of people who belong to communities like PAS. Perhaps we should name it Brown's Syndrome.
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I'm terrible with names. I'm not sure I try properly - perhaps if we all did that American repeating-peoples names back as often as possible thing it would help.
Alternatively, we could pursue a technological fix. The Romans had one, in the form of a slave who had to remember names and prompt their master. Nowdays, we have computers for that.
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There's always the Seinfeld solution. Everyone wears name tags.
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Yeah, another hand up for "Crap With Names" Syndrome, although I'm fine with faces. When I was in tutorials at University, I always found it interesting that while I'd be lucky if I could remember two or three names of the people in a tutorial, I'd always be able to remember exactly where everyone had been sitting.
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My partner is cringe-makingly terrible with names. When I first met him, I was impressed by how open and friendly he was, and then after a couple of years I realised he greets everyone like a friend - just in case he knows them and he's forgotten.
You store faces and names in different parts of your brain, so correctly identifying someone you know involves switching operations.
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I'm exactly the opposite to RB (and a lot of other PAS posters so far). I am great with names and faces but am not "naturally sociable and at ease in conversation with strangers". I can almost always correctly say "Gidday, John/Jane" even after not seeing them for 10 years.
I drive my wife batty by recognising bit-part actors in movies and letting her know what other films they have also been bit-part actors in.
I can do the small-talk thing if I really work at it, but it doesn't come naturally. (Why, yes! I do work in IT...)
In the faceblind test I scored 88% on unknown faces and 97% on famous faces (Tony Blair threw me)
No Brown syndrome here...
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