Face Blindness

I might have a similar problem, though i might also have partial face blindness. It takes me a while to memorize a face, like you, but small changes can render someone unrecognizable. On Supergirl, Mon El returned recently with a beard and mustache. Even knowing who he is, i don't recognize him, could be another actor for all i know. Doesn't help that the actor is one of several models of Generic Boring White Guy Who All Look Practically Identical. I used to watch a series called The 4400, but about halfway through the series i had to give up; a villain and a good guy were played by actors (white guys) that had the same body type, hair color, eye color, and virtually identical faces, and they dressed identically. I couldn't tell them apart even when they were standing next to each other, made the series impossible to follow after that point.

On that note, I tend to be a lot better at recognizing black people. Other non whites, too, but the darker the skin, the easier it is for me. I learn the faces of black people faster and have fewer problems with facial changes mucking with recognition. So along with preferring diversity for fairness reasons and because white cis hetero abled people stories are boring as all shit, I also prefer diversity because it makes stories easier for me to follow.

The reason I say I might have a similar problem to you is A. Multiple minds in one body = bandwidth hogging. B. Ridiculously acute vision, damn near Legolas level. Imagine a flat swath of land, horizon is miles away, there's trees on the horizon. I can see the individual leaves on those trees. From a height of about ten feet, possibly more, looking down, i can see the individual pores in blades of grass. I can read text from across a room that most people couldn't even recognize as being text from the same distance. I got my vision tested as a kid; they told me it was better than 20/20 but didn't specify a number. I suspect I was off their chart. I took an online vision test quiz thing a couple years ago, i think the second best was hawk, first best was robot. I got robot. :)

So I don't know if I'm partially face blind or if the processing that would normally go to facial recognition is being used for other stuff. I never noticed the problem with facial recognition before finding out I'm a multiple (when activity of that nature started to spike), but I only ever lived in small towns or one small area of a suburb before, rather than the Portland metro area; fewer faces to remember and more opportunity and incentive to memorize them could equal fewer opportunities to notice partial face blindness.

Then too, another possibility is I've filled up my monkeysphere and my brain has been trying to make space for more faces by deleting old faces i no longer need to remember.