Goodall, Jane & Berman, Phillip L. (1999). Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey. New York: Warner Books,
Inc. pp. 13 - 14
In the course of my travels, one thing detracts from my enjoyment of meeting people. I suffer from an
embarrassing, curiously humbling neurological condition called prosopagnosia, which, translated, means
I have problems in face recognition. I used to think it was due to some mental laziness, and I tried
desperately to memorize the faces of people I met so that, if I saw them the next day, I would recognize them.
I had no trouble with those who had obvious physical characteristics -- unusual bone structure, beaky nose,
extreme beauty or the opposite. But with other faces I failed, miserably. Sometimes I knew that people were
upset when I did not immediately recognize them -- certainly I was. And because I was embarrassed, I kept it
to myself.
Quite by chance, when talking to a friend recently, I found that he suffered from the same problem. I could
not believe it. Then I discovered my own sister, Judy, knew similar embarrassment. Perhaps others did, also.
I wrote to the well-known neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks. Had he ever heard of such an unusual condition? Not
only had he heard of it -- he suffered from it himself! And his situation was far more extreme than mine. He
sent me a paper, titled "Developmental memory impairment: faces and patterns," by Christine Temple
Even now that I know I need not feel guilty, it is still difficult to know how to cope -- I can hardly go 'round
telling everyone I meet that I probably won't know them from Adam the next time I see them! Or maybe I should?
It is humiliating, because most people simply think I'm making an elaborate excuse for my failure to recognize
them and that, obviously, I don't really care about them at all -- so they are hurt. I have to cope as best
I can -- usually by pretending to recognize everyone! And while that can have its awkward moments too, it's
not nearly as bad as the other way around.
Oliver Sacks, comes out as a prosopagnosic in a book review (published in Neurology 43: 240 (1993)) of Mental
Lives: Case studies in cognition, edited by Ruth Campell, Oxford, UK, Blackwell, 198:
"... and (for rather personal reasons, perhaps) one of my favorites, a case study by Christine Temple of a "Dr. S." a
gifted but agnosic psychoanalyst who is completely unable to recognize any faces or places - the description of Dr S.
is quite marvelous, and made me think I was reading about myself!"
A J Larner (2004) Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty: an early report of prosopagnosia? J Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry 75;1063,
HISTORICAL NOTE
In chapter 6, Alice notices that the egg that she has just purchased had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had
come close to it, she saw clearly that it was HUMPTY DUMPTY himself. ''It can't be anybody else!'' she said to
herself. ''I'm as certain of it, as if his name were written all over his face.''
Alice: ''Good-bye, till we meet again!'' she said as cheerfully as she could. ''I shouldn't know you again if
we did meet,'' Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake: ''you're
so exactly like other people.'' ''The face is what one goes by, generally,'' Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.
''That's just what I complain of,'' said Humpty Dumpty. ''Your face is the same as everybody else has-the two
eyes, so-'' (marking their places in the air with his thumb) ''nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always the
same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance- or the mouth at the top-that would
be some help.'' ''It wouldn't look nice,'' Alice objected.