busyI can sympathize; I'm not very good at remembering names and faces. I guess you could call me face ... myopic. I have no trouble with close friends and family members. Casual acquaintances, however, may or may not register. Introduce two or more people to me at once, and chances are I won't remember any of them. I can spend 9 months seeing the same 25 people in a room every day, and never learn to recognize all of them. Changes in a person's hair, glasses, or other features can cause me not to recognize them. It isn't personal; this simply isn't data that my brain is good at storing.
People frequently get pissy if you don't recognize them. Fortunately, I'm social teflon; I don't really care. I also tend not to care if someone doesn't come up and talk to me if we casually pass in public, or if someone doesn't invite me to an event. It just doesn't register on my radar as a significant occurrence. (Occasionally in junior high, someone would come up to me, all tearful about what a heartless bitch I was ... because I wasn't upset about not being invited to a party she'd counted on me being broken-hearted at not being invited to. I was startled the first time, and replied "What party?" Subsequent occasions I just laughed.) On the other hoof, I get along well with other folks who often forget names and faces: I'm distinctive enough in appearance that most people can spot me, and I'm not easily offended by mistakes.
Anyhow, this is fun material for alien interactions. I had one race that just could not tell humans apart. The first contact crew solved that by having every human wear a different scarf -- one crewmember happened to collect them and had a drawerful of exotic scarves. But you always had to have that scarf, or they wouldn't know who you were.
The obverse is also interesting, when aliens can identify something easily that humans can't. Another race breeds only during peak monsoons that occur every few years. They're amphibious and colorful. Individuals born in the same generation have a characteristic appearance; they can tell at a glance which generation someone belongs to. This is difficult for humans to do, which is awkward, because age is a very big deal in that culture. The way the language is designed, you can't talk to someone unless you know whether s/he is younger than you, older than you, or the same age.
March 8 2008, 08:16:06 UTC 13 years ago
Oh they should totally say, "I'm not speciesist! It's just that all of those people look alike. Honestly, some of my best friends are human!"
March 8 2008, 17:25:44 UTC 13 years ago
March 8 2008, 20:04:25 UTC 13 years ago
Though, speaking of aliens, a species that primarily used scent to distinguish one another would have an analogy to face-blindness if they lost their sense of smell. The lack of a sense of smell would be an interesting disability for them, with rather different effects than blindness or deafness, but still quite serious.
March 8 2008, 21:53:47 UTC 13 years ago Edited: March 8 2008, 21:54:06 UTC
Most sentient species (and most group-oriented animals) have ways of recognizing individuals. But the ways are extremely diverse -- it can be visual, auditory, olfactory, even motile. Usually it fixates on a key distinguishing feature. Faces are used a lot in human communication, and human faces have pretty good variety, so they're a good marker. Wolves have a strong personal scent and good noses, so they use scent. Various insects have "dances" that tell others who they are or what their business is. An alien race will usually use its dominant sense to recognize other individuals of its species based on their most salient feature discernible wtih that sense.
March 8 2008, 22:20:46 UTC 13 years ago
March 8 2008, 22:26:17 UTC 13 years ago