h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Does anyone else find that there are certain people who's names you always mix up? I tend to find people, usually pairs in some way, that I just never remember no matter how long I know them!

An example at work; Pam and Yvonne. They work in the same department and sit next to each other and do a similar job, but look COMPLETELY different to each other.

I can't tell them apart

I call Yvonne, 'Pam' and Pam, 'Yvonne'. Or I just find a way not to use their names. It's a complete blind spot and I can't explain it. I have to look at their Skype images to remind myself which is which before I speak to them, but if I don't do that I get them mixed up again.

Same thing happened for ages with two blokes in another department, but I can now get them right if I think hard about it, even now, thinking about them, it's a bit hazy who is who and I can only picture one of their faces.

In the main though, I don't have too much problem remembering people's names. it just seems to be when they are in 'pairs' in some way

Names that are similar get mixed up. Ellen and Elaine. Then there's Rosemary and Maryanne.

Then there's Ant and Dec, who I used to confuse until I realised that Ant looks like an ant.

I still have problems with Alice and Herbert.

Which one's Ant'n'Dec and which one's Anton Du Beke?

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Im fine on names but have a bad memory for faces. (There's a word for that but it escapes me for the moment)

I think of people more holistcally (this may be a female trait) so once I've sorted out who the person is,I can draw on a database in my memory which has their phone number, birthday, various facts about them and things they have said. This is quite abstract.

Having said that, I do sometimes have words or objects that I confuse. The best answer would be to think of an aide-memoire. E.g. "Pam has a baby and pushes a Pram",

That's helpful suggestion.

The word I have just found for "bad memory for faces" is prosopagnosia.

Not Aphasia as you might think

It doesn't sound familiar, though. Perhaps it was just thought up by someone and there's another word someone else thought up, which is the one I originally hear.

You can't deny that it's appropriate - having a bad memory for those words.

There's an excellent Entry in the Edited Guide about prosopagnosia A87740382

I know what you mean, winnoch2, about struggling with assigning names to faces - in my case I think it's because I know someone called Pam, say, so I get an image in my mind about what 'Pams' look like. Then if someone else has the same name but looks different, I don't associate the name with them too. And similarly, if someone looks like a 'Pam' I am more likely to not remember their actual name...

Thanks for that, Sasha - Dmitri hits the spot in the last paragraph with:

>> You fully recognise the warmth, wit, and personality of your fellow man. The fact that you might walk by him on the street is something else again<<

I think I didn't recognise the word prosopagnosia because I had only heard the other one mentioned, prosopamnesia.

(Normally I have a good memory for words and names)

A lesion in the Fusiform Gyrus causes it?

I struggle to remember people's names in general but I really am appallingly bad at recognising people out of context. So for example, I have a neighbour called Sue. She's been our neighbour for almost a decade, probably see her outside the house once or twice every week – I definitely know who she is. I bumped into her in the supermarket once and didn't recognise her – she wasn't where I expect her to be.
If people are where I expect them to be I can remember who they are, but if they go somewhere different or wear something different (so for example, someone I work with wearing informal clothes) I struggle to recognise who they are.

Oh, and I really cannot recognise anyone's voice on the phone.

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Context is everything.

I once came across Lenny Henry waiting at some traffic lights and I thought - You drive a Picasso! Why?

Context is everything indeed...

I get a lot of practice because people find me easy to recognise out of context, so they often say the dreaded, "don't you know who I am?" and I have to search my memory banks desperately for information about where I might have seen them before... My most impressive one was somehow recognising my sister's friend's school headteacher in a park!

However, the challenge is that more than once people have mistaken me for someone else because they saw the wheelchair and assumed I was the only other wheelchair user they knew! I once spent quite a while trying to recognise someone who greeted me happily, until they said, "where's your assistance dog?" and I realised they thought I was someone from a different department, who had different colour hair and a different colour wheelchair plus an assistance dog

I don't tend to recognise celebrities, though, because they are well out of context if I just see them randomly somewhere...

It is funny how voices on the phone do sound different from voices face to face... Like when you hear a recording of your own voice and it sounds different, where different frequencies are enhanced. Takes me a few goes, but I can link phone voices to people eventually, so I can recognise them without them saying who they are first (as people often don't do that)...

I sometimes wonder that if first impressions are the ones that count, but no matter how hard I try I can't remember or recognise someone I've apparently met before, do the first impressions still count or am I making new first impressions?

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I don't have great difficulty recognizing people's faces unless their hair turns a different color.

If I know I know someone then I generally can remember their face and name, but I can't remember everyone I've met or talked to. This gets particularly bad at my club – when I go I recognise all the regulars, but there are a lot of people who may be new people or people who only come occasionally, and I never know whether or not I've spoken to them before. So because I'm not sure whether or not I've talked to them before I often engage in pre-emptive small-talk, and say hello and converse in a vague way that is appropriate for someone who hasn't seen someone they know for a little while and also for someone who is meeting someone new for the first time.
The trouble with that approach is that if they are someone who is only there occasionally, the next time they come I'm still not sure whether I know them or not – but chances are fair that they now recognise me - and so I engage in the pre-emptive small talk again, which perpetuates the problem. After 4 years of doing this there seem to be lots of people who know who I am, but I can't remember who they are or when (and how many times) I've met them.

Life would be so much easier if I could remember if I've met people before better, and I really hate that I just can't seem able to.

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Same thing for me at my local pub, but with exacerbating .

"Life would be so much easier if I could remember if I've met people before better" [Bluebottle]

I think you have a lot of company on that.