Facial recognition is a skill most of us have had since birth, a skill, given its commonplace nature, that we often take for granted. However, for some, this ability would seem completely foreign. Kate Szell, a former partner in a law firm, recently won a science writing contest on the subject of prosopagnosia, a condition that makes it extremely difficult for a person to recognize faces. She aims to spread awareness and foster an environment of understanding for those suffering from the condition.
As even our smartphones are learning to recognize faces, it is difficult to imagine a world without such an ability. That’s why Szell, in her piece, rather than overburdening her audience with scientific terms, offers an analogy so that they might understand how it feels to suffer from prosopagnosia. She suggests to her audience to try recognizing people by their hands rather than their faces (paragraph 2). Through this, it becomes easy for a reader to perceive the difficulty. If faces appeared as similar to us as hands, it would certainly be tough to differentiate between people.
To compound the level of understanding obtained through the analogy, Szell also offers insight from a person who suffers from the condition. A fourteen-year-old girl tells about how she once asked her best friend of many years who she was. “[S]he’d had a haircut, so how was I to know?” (paragraph 1). The testimony gives her credibility on a personal level and makes her reader feel sympathy for those suffering from prosopagnosia. A simple level of emotional connection to a real case of the condition facilitates the level of acceptance and patience Szell hopes to achieve.
Beyond personal testimony, Szell provides the logical appeal through facts she has collected and expert testimony to the reality of the issue. According to studies, she writes, around two percent of the population has prosopagnosia (paragraph 3). While the percentage seems small, it is not. Out of every fifty people, one has prosopagnosia. Such as statistic helps her audience to see how vital understanding is. Most people interact with at least fifty people in their lives, so awareness of the condition should be much more widespread than it is. As she, a former partner in a law firm, is not an expert in the subject, she references professionals to give her cause credibility as well. Researcher Kirsten Dalrymple from the University of Minnesota makes known that in her studies, while some children with the condition cope with their condition, others become withdrawn. Some cannot differentiate between friends and strangers and put themselves at risk (paragraph 4). Through Dalrymple, Szell thus indicates the importance of awareness for parents, teachers, and other children.
Kate Szell’s contest-winning essay certainly takes the prize for helping people to, in her own words, “recognize the face of prosopagnosia” (paragraph 10).
Prosopagnosia specialist Dr Martina Grüter actually recommends face picture pairs games, I cite in my blogpost on the subject of face blindness http://iitm.be/faceblnd
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