Prosopagnosia or face blindness is a brain disorder. It is characterized by the inability to recognize or differentiate faces. People with minor prosopagnosia may just struggle to differentiate or identify faces of strangers or people they don’t know well. Those with moderate to severe face blindness may struggle to recognize faces of people they see regularly including family members and close friends. In very severe cases, people with face blindness may not recognize their own faces.
One of the most common complaints of prosopagnosics is that they have trouble following the plot of television shows and movies because they cannot keep track of the identity of the characters. Prosopagnosia is thought to be caused by abnormalities, impairment, or damage of a fold in the brain called the right fusiform gyrus.
