July 18, 2025 • 7 mins
While we all have difficulty remembering and placing faces sometimes, some people are unable to do it altogether.
Prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face-blindness, is a psychological condition that renders people unable to recognise faces – sometimes including their own.
Dr Dougal Sutherland joined Jack Tame to delve into this rare condition.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks That'd be and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our clinical psychologist Google Sutherland from Umbrella Well Being is
here with us this morning.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Kilder Google Kilder Jack. Hey, you're mentioning before of rixham
and and the Tour de France. God, I love the
Tour de France. Isn't it amazing? Amazing? Speak to you
talked about.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Oh, you guys going to say there's going to be
dangerous territory. My producer Lebby's already scoffing and rolling her
eyes in the air breaks I tell her about what's
happened overnight. Lebby, It's just been.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Amazing, unbelievable, isn't it. I just I tried it, you go, yeah, No,
I was just every day I try to watch that
two hour, the last two hours they have and Tuddy Pagotcha.
It's like, Oh, it's just everything that you could want.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Really, it's so dramatic. Yeah, the thing is so the
way the tour works, and I promise that we're not
going to go on too long about this, but the
way that it works is for the first kind of
week and a half or so, they have these stages
that are one hundred and sixty hundred and seventy k
k is long, and they're kind of sprint stages. They
call them sprint stages, although for me, one hundred and
sixty k's is not a sprint anyway, But basically they
(01:13):
call them sprint stages because they're relatively flat, and so
in the last few k's of the race they have
the big, powerful sprinters who all sprint it out and
you have the kind of photo finish on the line.
But the way that the Tour de France is generally
decided is when they get into the mountains. So when
they get into the Pyrenees or they get into the Alps,
and all of a sudden, one by one the cyclists
(01:35):
and those big pelotons just fall away and fall away
and fall away, and it comes down to man on man,
just the best cycler perform at altitudes and there's no hiding,
Like you've got all the fans on the side of
the road and you have these these incredible athletes just
one by one falling off to the side. It's so
so deceived.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Three thousand k's or something, isn't It's a scene that's
just it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, yeah, I don't see how it's fun.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Like, no, I don't know. It's a challenge. I can
see that, but gosh, yeah, fun doesn't really enter into
the vocal.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Mental The mental component must be so it must be amazing,
you know, just to get up and do a day
after that. Anyway, I'm glad that you're a fan as well,
because I'm sitting.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Absolutely Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Hey, today, you thought you would shine the light on
a psychological condition that I'm going to hazard a guess
and say that almost none of us have ever heard of.
It would be worth a fair amount on a triple
word score. Prosopagnosia, is that.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Right, proto pagnosia, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
As face blindness, face blindness.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So imagine that you that you arranged to meet somebody
and you arrive there and there's a whole bunch of
people and you go, I don't know the person that
i'm and they're familiar to you, they're a friend, they're
not just a stranger, and you just can't pick out
their face from all the faces around you. And that's
that's prosopagnosia. So that's the that it comes from the
(03:04):
Greek term for face and not knowing, So it means
that you you lose the ability. Sometimes you lose it
after like a brain injury or something like that, or
a stroke, or there are some people that are born
with it. But you don't have the ability to recognize faces,
so you can't tell one person from another by looking
at their face. And what a debilitating condition that is,
(03:28):
because you know, it's just recognizing faces is so obviously
so key to our social relationship. So if you don't
have it, it makes life mighty mighty hard for you.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, it sounds sounds kind of remarkable, and and and
the way face blindness sounds extreme, so not But not
only is it that you can't necessarily recognize people's faces
really quickly, but you also can't recognize expressions, and of
course so much of communication is nonverbal. A't.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, absolutely, so you can't. You you're just unable. And
it seems to be that people that have prosopagnosia they
can see the individual parts of the face, so not
like they can't see they can see your eyes and
your mouth and your nose, et cetera. But it's putting
all those together into in your head into one sort
(04:22):
of overall picture and that seems to be where the
problem lies. And some listeners I'm sure will be familiar
with the name Oliver Sax, who's neurologist and he had
face blindness or prosopagnosia and writes really nicely about getting
into a lift and having to apologize to the person
(04:43):
that he nearly stepped on and then realized it was
actually himself in the mirror that he was talking to,
but he couldn't recognize his own face, let alone anybody
else's face, so he had sort of apologized to the
stranger who was in there, but no, it was in
fact him.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So it's not like just having a bad memory for
names or faces or anything like that. This is quite distinct.
I think the way you described it about like you
can see the individual eyes, you can see the nails,
you can see the mouth, you can see the cheekbones,
but you just can't put it together.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
You can't put it together. Yes, So yes, it's you know,
many of us, or some of us at least, might
say I'm not very good. I don't really not good
at remembering faces. But it's more than that. It's simply
not being able to recognize them in the first place.
So you know, an extreme example might be arriving home
from the airport. You've been on a big trip and
(05:35):
your wife and children are there to meet you, but
you can't pick them out in the crowd because you
can't recognize their faces. That there are ways around it
like that, you know, people get trained to use other
bits of the body for information, like you know, somebody's haircut,
although of course that can change, or the way somebody walks,
(05:58):
and so there are sort of way work arounds, but
that none of them are as good. And it's estimated
to effect around sort of one to two percent of
people in the population, and most of those might experience
it after they've had some sort of brain injury or
a stroke or something like that.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Right, And is there a scale, you know, like there's
some people who have it sort of really profound impacts
and some people who maybe just you know, like struggle
with expressions in that kind.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Of Yeah, yeah, there is a scale in terms of
you know, some people kick have it sort of mildly
and some people much more. But you know, still have
its fundamental bass that inability to just recognize the face
of or recognize faces full stop, doesn't matter whether it's
yours or your loved ones, and so yeah, it's a
(06:44):
really debilitating condition. It's very hard to I think, for
us as people who don't have it, to sort of,
you know, kind of understand or even get a sense
of it. It seems so fign.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But it's such a subconscious thing. Hey, like the way
that you that you recognize faces, obviously, but also the
way you kind of recognize expressions and stuff. You just
kin't of it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, there's a whole sort of second layer of processing
in your brain. So your brain gets the first messages.
So in terms of receives the messages, yes, I can
see that there's nothing wrong with my vision, but it's
in the complic or the complicated part of actually stitching
everything together in a hole. And it makes you sort
of go think about how amazing the brain must be
(07:27):
to do all this in the background. It's not a
simple in out sort of system. It's a very complicated system,
and if you tinker with the wiring inside, it sometimes
goes a bit offline.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, yeah, amazing cool. Hey, thank you so much, Google.
So thanks jos Pagnosia. Face blindness. Yeah, something I knew
zero about. So appreciate, appreciate that. Lesson this morning, Google
Sutherland from Umbrella Well Being with us.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
There for more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen
live to news talks that'd be from nine am Saturday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks That'd be and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our clinical psychologist Google Sutherland from Umbrella Well Being is
here with us this morning.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Kilder Google Kilder Jack. Hey, you're mentioning before of rixham
and and the Tour de France. God, I love the
Tour de France. Isn't it amazing? Amazing? Speak to you
talked about.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Oh, you guys going to say there's going to be
dangerous territory. My producer Lebby's already scoffing and rolling her
eyes in the air breaks I tell her about what's
happened overnight. Lebby, It's just been.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Amazing, unbelievable, isn't it. I just I tried it, you go, yeah, No,
I was just every day I try to watch that
two hour, the last two hours they have and Tuddy Pagotcha.
It's like, Oh, it's just everything that you could want.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Really, it's so dramatic. Yeah, the thing is so the
way the tour works, and I promise that we're not
going to go on too long about this, but the
way that it works is for the first kind of
week and a half or so, they have these stages
that are one hundred and sixty hundred and seventy k
k is long, and they're kind of sprint stages. They
call them sprint stages, although for me, one hundred and
sixty k's is not a sprint anyway, But basically they
(01:13):
call them sprint stages because they're relatively flat, and so
in the last few k's of the race they have
the big, powerful sprinters who all sprint it out and
you have the kind of photo finish on the line.
But the way that the Tour de France is generally
decided is when they get into the mountains. So when
they get into the Pyrenees or they get into the Alps,
and all of a sudden, one by one the cyclists
(01:35):
and those big pelotons just fall away and fall away
and fall away, and it comes down to man on man,
just the best cycler perform at altitudes and there's no hiding,
Like you've got all the fans on the side of
the road and you have these these incredible athletes just
one by one falling off to the side. It's so
so deceived.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Three thousand k's or something, isn't It's a scene that's
just it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, yeah, I don't see how it's fun.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Like, no, I don't know. It's a challenge. I can
see that, but gosh, yeah, fun doesn't really enter into
the vocal.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Mental The mental component must be so it must be amazing,
you know, just to get up and do a day
after that. Anyway, I'm glad that you're a fan as well,
because I'm sitting.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Absolutely Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Hey, today, you thought you would shine the light on
a psychological condition that I'm going to hazard a guess
and say that almost none of us have ever heard of.
It would be worth a fair amount on a triple
word score. Prosopagnosia, is that.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Right, proto pagnosia, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
As face blindness, face blindness.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So imagine that you that you arranged to meet somebody
and you arrive there and there's a whole bunch of
people and you go, I don't know the person that
i'm and they're familiar to you, they're a friend, they're
not just a stranger, and you just can't pick out
their face from all the faces around you. And that's
that's prosopagnosia. So that's the that it comes from the
(03:04):
Greek term for face and not knowing, So it means
that you you lose the ability. Sometimes you lose it
after like a brain injury or something like that, or
a stroke, or there are some people that are born
with it. But you don't have the ability to recognize faces,
so you can't tell one person from another by looking
at their face. And what a debilitating condition that is,
(03:28):
because you know, it's just recognizing faces is so obviously
so key to our social relationship. So if you don't
have it, it makes life mighty mighty hard for you.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, it sounds sounds kind of remarkable, and and and
the way face blindness sounds extreme, so not But not
only is it that you can't necessarily recognize people's faces
really quickly, but you also can't recognize expressions, and of
course so much of communication is nonverbal. A't.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, absolutely, so you can't. You you're just unable. And
it seems to be that people that have prosopagnosia they
can see the individual parts of the face, so not
like they can't see they can see your eyes and
your mouth and your nose, et cetera. But it's putting
all those together into in your head into one sort
(04:22):
of overall picture and that seems to be where the
problem lies. And some listeners I'm sure will be familiar
with the name Oliver Sax, who's neurologist and he had
face blindness or prosopagnosia and writes really nicely about getting
into a lift and having to apologize to the person
(04:43):
that he nearly stepped on and then realized it was
actually himself in the mirror that he was talking to,
but he couldn't recognize his own face, let alone anybody
else's face, so he had sort of apologized to the
stranger who was in there, but no, it was in
fact him.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So it's not like just having a bad memory for
names or faces or anything like that. This is quite distinct.
I think the way you described it about like you
can see the individual eyes, you can see the nails,
you can see the mouth, you can see the cheekbones,
but you just can't put it together.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
You can't put it together. Yes, So yes, it's you know,
many of us, or some of us at least, might
say I'm not very good. I don't really not good
at remembering faces. But it's more than that. It's simply
not being able to recognize them in the first place.
So you know, an extreme example might be arriving home
from the airport. You've been on a big trip and
(05:35):
your wife and children are there to meet you, but
you can't pick them out in the crowd because you
can't recognize their faces. That there are ways around it
like that, you know, people get trained to use other
bits of the body for information, like you know, somebody's haircut,
although of course that can change, or the way somebody walks,
(05:58):
and so there are sort of way work arounds, but
that none of them are as good. And it's estimated
to effect around sort of one to two percent of
people in the population, and most of those might experience
it after they've had some sort of brain injury or
a stroke or something like that.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Right, And is there a scale, you know, like there's
some people who have it sort of really profound impacts
and some people who maybe just you know, like struggle
with expressions in that kind.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Of Yeah, yeah, there is a scale in terms of
you know, some people kick have it sort of mildly
and some people much more. But you know, still have
its fundamental bass that inability to just recognize the face
of or recognize faces full stop, doesn't matter whether it's
yours or your loved ones, and so yeah, it's a
(06:44):
really debilitating condition. It's very hard to I think, for
us as people who don't have it, to sort of,
you know, kind of understand or even get a sense
of it. It seems so fign.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But it's such a subconscious thing. Hey, like the way
that you that you recognize faces, obviously, but also the
way you kind of recognize expressions and stuff. You just
kin't of it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, there's a whole sort of second layer of processing
in your brain. So your brain gets the first messages.
So in terms of receives the messages, yes, I can
see that there's nothing wrong with my vision, but it's
in the complic or the complicated part of actually stitching
everything together in a hole. And it makes you sort
of go think about how amazing the brain must be
(07:27):
to do all this in the background. It's not a
simple in out sort of system. It's a very complicated system,
and if you tinker with the wiring inside, it sometimes
goes a bit offline.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, yeah, amazing cool. Hey, thank you so much, Google.
So thanks jos Pagnosia. Face blindness. Yeah, something I knew
zero about. So appreciate, appreciate that. Lesson this morning, Google
Sutherland from Umbrella Well Being with us.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
There for more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen
live to news talks that'd be from nine am Saturday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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