Originally posted by IolantheAlias:
An very interesting discussion of prosopoagnosia was in neurologist Oliver Sack's book, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat".
Sacks has written some terrific books.
Originally posted by TOC:
(My favorite real-life story from that book is the one about the elderly twins diagnosed with autism or something, whose one joy in life was to tell each other prime numbers - you know, the numbers that can only be divided by themselves and by the number one, like 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29 etc. Well, it's easy when the prime numbers are low, but how do you know if 2,568,931 is a prime number or not? The twins knew, and they would tell each other ever higher prime numbers, lobbing them between themselves like a pair of tennis players hitting the ball. Until some bureaucrat or other decided that the twins needed to be separated so that they could learn to deal with real life. Wasn't it cruel?)
Very cruel indeed. Especially since from all we know of the inner lives of people on the spectrum, they often desire social interactions, just as neurotypical (non-autistic) people do; but they typically lack the social and possibly also the linguistic skills necessary to make and maintain friendships easily. The twins were obviously able to relate well to each other, and probably greatly enjoyed each others' company. That they would be denied that pleasure is barbaric.
Like Lynn, I have a bit of prosopagnosia myself.
Interesting. AFAIK, I've never met or even communicated with anyone else who has the condition. I can definitely relate to what you wrote about the blond-haired girls. Give me two people of the same gender with approximately the same build, complexion, hair colour and style and type of glasses (if any), and I'll have a really tough time distinguishing them.
Originally posted by LabRat:
Maybe Dean's Cain's face was the kind of face that just looked much better with glasses and a looser hair style?
My favourite look for him was Clark's hair style but no glasses. (I've never liked gel in hair; although in Superman's case, it at least looks tolerable.)
Interestingly, in the larger Superman mythos it is Clark Kent who has the gelled back, severe hair style and Superman who has the little lock falling down his forehead.
I wonder why they changed that for LnC? Perhaps because by that point hair gel had fallen out of style, and they figured that since Clark would get far more air time than Superman, they wanted his hair to look better?
BTW, Ann, I love all the pics you come up with to illustrate your points. They do make for fun viewing. And the points about the lock of hair were fascinating, as well. :-)
cheers,
Lynn
