Ne and facial/visual recognition?

[marooned]

This thing commonly comes up with my EII sister and I where she mis-identifies actors in movies/tv. The latest was where she saw Alex Kingston in something and thought she was Minnie Driver. But she expresses complete certainty about these things each time (and will only be dissuaded by some form of "proof" like the cast listing )... This also reminds me that there was a question on Rick's last test that seemed to relate to this sort of thing (though I have forgotten)... and it reminds me of the thread Joy posted a while back with a picture one of her classes when she was child (in this thread some people couldn't spot which child was Joy and one of the Delta NFs mentioned weak as the culprit). Thoughts?

[marooned]

It may not be related.

Ne looks for a common denominator between seperate information when evaluating anything, be it different information or different faces. The trouble is when a common denominator is obscured by layers of complexity. ... I think any sense of confidence comes from the feeling that you've stripped an object to it's absolute common denominator with another object.

Hmm. This is interesting because I do this a lot. In fact I suspect this is how I identify (match) faces. Though I was thinking the essence of an object requires that the object is fixed. So if it comes to someone, like as a person (not so much their appearance), what seems to be the essence of them at one point may not precisely match what seems to be the essence of them 20 years later... even though there of course will be a common denominator still even with the 20 year gap.

I'm not very good at breaking apart and analyzing very complex art pieces because I need to preserve the art's holistic nature. I don't think of a piece as a synthesis of seperate details, but only see how they work together to produce the full image.

Same. I found art history class to be a little tedious because there were too many darn visual details that we were supposed to be noticing in the pieces.

This is why I can never find personally meaningful expression through art. I cannot express feelings as distinct from my presence, therefore my real life as I know it is a palette.

That's so sad. ()

Is that enough of a concise bottom-line for your LSE majesty?

Don't hate me because I'm LSE.

[Sirena]

Ne looks for a common denominator between seperate information when evaluating anything, be it different information or different faces. The trouble is when a common denominator is obscured by layers of complexity. Although I think I'm pretty good at facial correlations. I think any sense of confidence comes from the feeling that you've stripped an object to it's absolute common denominator with another object.

I'm not very good at breaking apart and analyzing very complex art pieces because I need to preserve the art's holistic nature. I don't think of a piece as a synthesis of seperate details, but only see how they work together to produce the full image. This is why I can never find personally meaningful expression through art. I cannot express feelings as distinct from my presence, therefore my real life as I know it is a palette.

Is that enough of a concise bottom-line for your LSE majesty?

Me too.

[Creepy-Diana]

.

[munenori2]

I'm usually very good at remembering which actors are in what (names can be hard though!), but my SEE sis is absolutely horrible at it and sticks by what she says too. We keep a running tally of some of the things she's claimed so we can tease her about it every once in a while.

[dbmmama]

It is true that the way different personality types read information COULD influence the way they recognize faces, but it's how developed your fusiform gyrus is that determines how good you are at facial recognition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusiform_gyrus

I doubt that the fusiform gyrus is linked to personality type, but it might be.

My ENTp-husband has the best recognition of faces I've ever seen. He can walk with me in the middle of a crowded street, and he can tell immediately who he has seen before. Like "that man was in the train with me 3 years ago" or "That man was in the post-office when I posted a letter 2 weeks ago" or "I've seen her in (another city) when we visited a year ago". I have tested if he's right, and he actually is. He just remembers faces.

I'm like your sister.

i do what your husband does.

[Blaze]

i have an excellent memory for faces; i can place where i know people from and the fact that i do know them.

it's names that simply will not stay in my mind without a lot of repetition.

it's related to rationality i think....irrationals tend to ready body language better and rationals tend to pay attention to what is said better.

[Wynch]

Oh, I can read body language, and I remember faces much better than names. But somehow I categorize faces, so I can mix different people. I think I know someone, and then it was someone looking almost the same. Happens to me all the time.

My husband however, can look at a face and tell me if he EVER, has seen that person before, and he'll be certain about it. If he has passed someone on the streets, even without looking at them, he'll know their faces forever, even though they have changed their hair or beard or gotten older. It's amazing!

He kind of sees everyone around, and knows where he's seen them before. I can walk on the streets, and I never see anyone familiar unless I've talked with them at least once... Also, if I meet someone from my childhood, I normally can't recognize their grown-up faces. He always can.

I do that too. I've always found it strange. I won't for the life of me recall an individual's name, but I remember faces very well. Part of it is because I happen to have a photographic memory so long as it's associated with something, and since I spend most of my time thinking I almost always have thoughts to associate with a face. So rather than say "I saw him two years ago on the bus" I'll say "I saw him a long time ago when I was thinking about the shape of leaves while riding home from work. Man, have you ever wondered..." Or last night I was on the heading to a party and 7 hours later I was downtown trying to catch a bus home from the fireworks at one of the major stops with about 300 people milling about the sidewalk and street when I saw four people who were on the bus with me earlier that day. I recognized them because I was busy having profoundly abstract thoughts about wearing red and white on Canada Day when we were riding the bus.

[Wynch]

I'm not sure if a lot of the time we're actually seeing the same people though. It's quite possible that we're making those abstracted connections. I mean since talking on stickam with people I've started seeing people who, to me, look practically identical to them. So much so that I find it eerie. But I'm not sure if that's because I've come to recognize certain aspects of their features and I will unconsciously seek those out in others.

Generally speaking I have a good visual memory for things I can associate to ideas. Anything I use in conjunction with Ti I have an excellent memory for.

[dbmmama]

I do that too. I've always found it strange. I won't for the life of me recall an individual's name, but I remember faces very well. Part of it is because I happen to have a photographic memory so long as it's associated with something, and since I spend most of my time thinking I almost always have thoughts to associate with a face. So rather than say "I saw him two years ago on the bus" I'll say "I saw him a long time ago when I was thinking about the shape of leaves while riding home from work. Man, have you ever wondered..." Or last night I was on the heading to a party and 7 hours later I was downtown trying to catch a bus home from the fireworks at one of the major stops with about 300 people milling about the sidewalk and street when I saw four people who were on the bus with me earlier that day. I recognized them because I was busy having profoundly abstract thoughts about wearing red and white on Canada Day when we were riding the bus.

okey dokey, this is what i do too...i see "patterns" in everything and it goes for faces too.

i know someone changed their hair or is wearing glasses now compared to when i saw them years ago... on and on

and it is related to whatever thought i was having at the time that created the connection.

i also do this with people's behavioral patterns. even though i don't quite "get" how to label them socionics wise, i am excellent at seeing the patterns in how certain people behave, the same or different from one situation to another and over time and the meaning of the different behaviors.

not sure if that's NeTi or NeFi. but, i do that naturally without "trying."

[munenori2]

What are you people? Face savants?

[Suomea]

...

[dbmmama]

That sounds a lot like the way I categorize to remembering faces, only you are better at it.

Still I can think that two people look the same. I.e. I can see resemblance between different people, and say "she looks a lot like she does" and my husband will constantly go "you think? I can't see that." He never sees similarities between anyone. Even with identical twins that everybody else mixes, even parents, he says "they don't look alike at all!!" It's as though he sees more details than others.

yes, then we're alike again.

i see resemblance between people too. not just physically but behaviorally too, personality wise too.....

i also don't say what your hubby says about the details. when i "ran into" my hubby when we first hooked up, i knew i knew him from somewhere and it was the dmv. he worked there when i first moved here and got my drivers license. but, i couldn't remember what the dmv was called. so, i walked up to him and said "i know you from somewhere. the car place." and he says all sarcastic like "what? am i car salesman?" i was hooked. and he liked my ass, so we were golden from then on.

[redbaron]

I'm great with faces and horrible with names. I can also usually tell which parent a child looks most like or if they're an equal combination of the two.

[Satan]

I'm terrible with faces, and terrible with names. What does that make me ?

Most people, they all seem so .. bland ..

That said, people remember me! And so then I get that weird situation where someone's all like "I remember you" and I'm like standing there, wondering who the fuck they are.

Sometimes if people stick a few associations to when we met I can start to recall after a delayed reaction.

Just the other day, this guy was telling me how I was friends with this other guy. This other guy, he's crazy, lots of people seem to know him. But a lot of them seem to be dropkicks. Like this guy, for instance. Who "didn't know what was happening" the last time we'd met. And who "didn't know why he was so tired". Pretty much me, and the guy he said he was friends with, had been playing, joking around etc. And that other guy, just couldn't keep up. We'd all gone out for dinner, and he couldn't even finish his meal - I tried to encouarge him to keep eating - but alas he couldn't', so we finished his meal. Then he seemed to want to cling on because something exciting might happen, whilst the other guy had already kind of intuited that he had to ask me for an invite. Which the clingy guy didn't seem to understand how to do, and he just kind of stumbled.

And pretty much stumbling, if for too long, will mean I don't even remember someone. They have to seem to at least have some degree of coherency.

It's like if someone shakes hands with you, or offers you a beer or anything. None of that makes them engrain themselves in your mind. It just means, you get a beer, or they want to shake hands. And if their hand shake is flimsy, or the beer's no good. Well hey, why not just drop them. Why do you need them clogging your neurons?

So yeah, now I don't remember that guy that couldn't keep up's name, and I kind of know what he looks like. He just doesn't matter that much. He's not *my* friend. He's some guy that clings onto this other guy, who seems to attract lots of people.

Hell, one time he was telling me how people just give him cigarettes. And then I was with him for a while, and it was true. It's like this guy, he .. hangon, he wanted to use my lighter, and then he gave *me* a cigarette, and this guy a cigarette, and then just left. It's like I can't do conversation - let's just do a transaction.

Then that bounced back to how I've done pretty much the same thing before. I've talked about people rolling me cigarettes. And had people roll cigarettes for me, just afterwards.

It's like associate, associate, associate, and then things can kind of click.

Who needs faces, and names. When you have people. REAL PEOPLE.

Oh and the crazy guy must have been INFp, as he manipulated me into saying how easy it would be to rape him.

[Satan]

omgz...

Yeah, but then he kept on going on about how he was a male prostitute, a gigilo etc

Luckily, saying that he was "still talking" got him, to stop running at the mouth, and he didn't seem to mind being reminded.

He didn't seem to mind shifting directions, at a moments notice. But left to his own devices, he was pretty out-there.

Kind of like he had to be minded.

I think he's probably ISFp. I'm just amused by how anyone that wants to be raped must be an INFp.

[iAnnAu]

(SLI speaking here)
I have a hard time creating impressions of people except on memorable occasions. Once I've hung out with a person 3 or more times, then I start feeling like I have a concept in my mind of "Joe Blow" or w/e, but until then if I see a person's face I am more likely to think of what was going on at the other times I saw that image, rather than "this is Joe Blow".
For example, I was at the local bar for my SO's friend's birthday. The mood was festive, and we were sitting out front watching the girls walk by in spring fashion. A previous cocktail waitress joined our table with a new friend in tow - they were both already plastered and excitedly talking about possibilities they were cultivating for later that night. Since we’re such regulars, the manager of the bar bought a round for our entire table, and the guys all wanted this vodka drink, but the new girl claimed she couldn't drink vodka, so they guys ordered ice bombs, and the girls all ordered redheaded sluts. After that drink, the two girls wandered back and forth socializing widely but gravitating back to us. At one point, the new girl told me a convoluted story about this guy who owns a houseboat who had given her money to buy fine liquor and bring it by later that night for a "small" party ... except she also had an ex who was in town, and she was wondering which one to go with since she obviously couldn't see both. The ex-waitress was obviously hanging onto her both protectively and not-so-subtly hoping to get some more alcohol out of the night ... finally, they stumbled drunkenly off.
A few weeks later, the ex-waitress gestured to my SO & I from an upstairs window while we were out for Sundown in the City, a free concert series in Knoxville. Her friend was hosting a party at an upscale loft, and we got buzzed in. While there, the ex-waitress sat in the window staring dreamily at the band playing, and the SO and I just kinda sat around. Her friend was rather frantic trying to set snacks & drinks out (and apparently arrange to have some weed delivered and rolled into party-sized joints, though we left before that came together). After about 20 minutes we thanked her for inviting us up and left to hopefully start up a footbag circle. She smiled a slightly strained goodbye – as if she really was happy to see us again, but a little too harried to interact with us more in depth.
I cannot say if I would recognize this woman by her face next time I saw her, and I only remember her name as Lisa because the ex-waitress kept calling for her repeatedly on both occasions of my meeting her. But I will remember her actions, the story she told me, and the events surrounding both interactions probably forever.
Hopefully, if I come across her again, I can actually have a conversation whereby she expresses personal interests unbefuddled by alcohol … or otherwise interact in a less “party” atmosphere, so my brain can actually absorb what it considers authentic and substantial impressions. What I’ve got so far gives me almost nothing tangible at all – does she part a lot, or not so much, since in both cases she seemed eager yet off-balance? Is she very socially gregarious, or is she complementary to the ex-waitress (who is overbearingly gregarious) and more along the lines of quietly charming (yet become more verbose through drunkenness)? Does she set herself up to be used by men, since she was caught between the mysterious houseboat-er and her ex? I don’t have anywhere near enough information to say.