Poll on demand!!

[green_amber]

More follow up to yesterdya's poll for dalmeny. When I get a min (decidedly not now) I'll do a BB resident psychologist analysis:-) If you haven't done yesterday's poll, do now! - http://surliminal.livejournal.com/133027.html?mode=reply


[Poll #747174]

Comments

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I can remember both -- what I can't remember is which name goes with which face, and also which name/face goes with which reason for knowing someone.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I thought I was like that - but when I thought about it, I realised what I really CAN't remember is faces - then I can't correlate a name to a face of course. I think I do remeber the names but they'e useless if you can't attach them to a visually recognisable person. (I can eg attach a name to "that person got a god mark for their last essay" - but this is rarely useful if you still can't attach it to the face. (There's an ontology in here somewere..)

The "reason for knowing someone" thing is one I also hve difficulty with - is this person that knows me a fan, a student, an ex colleague, someone I randomly know in Edin burgh>? - but I sort of assumed that was because (a I know a lot of diferent groups (b) I am quite rememberable myself :-) (c) I often deal one to many eg one of me, lots of my students. (d) Edinburgh is a village so v common to meet someone and there be a lrge no of hypotheses why you know them - not a problem I had in Glasgow or London. Why do you think you have trouble with it?

[celiaka.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I have spent a lot of time doing jobs which need me to quickly get to know and work with a whole officeful of new people; and because I'm the intruder and they are required to do as I ask, I need to put them at ease and gain their trust. I used to set a great deal of store by being able to learn/remember all the faces and names.

These days I don't do that kind of thing so much and I rarely put much effort into memorising faces and names - life's too short.

[johannes-d.livejournal.com]

I felt unable to tick any of the previous quiz options but it did bring back strongly my first week at university 36 years ago. I met and spent a lot of time in my first week with a person who was one of my closest friends at university. I failed to register his name on first meeting and spent the nearly two weeks in the increasingly embarrassing situation of having a close friend whose name I did not know and could not reasonably (I felt) ask.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I don't generally have a problem with names or faces. I've often had the experience of recognising a face but not remembering the name, or even not remembering where I've met them (particularly when it's in a different context). But my understanding is that everyone gets that to some extent and I don't think I'm any worse than average at it.

I do sometimes have trouble remembering the word for things even though I know them very well (mild nominal aphasia). I usually try to get round the problem by describing the thing or what you do with it. So, for example, I might be talking about building a wall and say, "I need to get some ... er ... more ... those thingies, red, made of baked clay, rectangular ... [miming] you know, you build the wall out of them."

This sometimes happens with people's names too, but it's just as likely to be people I know well as people I don't.

I might forget a name ... but I might equally forget the words "name" or "face": "Ah, yes, it's Pat, isn't it? For a minute there I knew your ... err ... thing on the front of your head, has your eyes in, between your hair and your chin ... I mean, I recognised you but I couldn't remember your ... your thing that you're called ... you know, yours is Pat and mine is Doug ..."

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

LOvely - you sound like John hegley..

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Very kind of you to say so, but I don't think I can claim my utterances would qualify as poetry!

[nmg.livejournal.com]

but I might equally forget the words "name" or "face"

I thought that I was the only person my age who had senior moments like that...

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Though I ticked the context box, the fact is that I have difficulty putting names to faces or faces to names - but what I always remember is the voice. If someone speaks to me I can usually put together name and face, linked by the voice.

I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that whenever I take one of those do-your-own-analysis polls I always come out close to autism? (But there are parts of my personality which are the extact opposite to classic autism. For instance, I learned to speak at 9 months. Go figure.)

[alanro.livejournal.com]

I am pretty much the same way; I have next to no visual memory, but can remember entire conversations for years, almost verbatim in some cases.

Never tested for autism, but I've been an INFP every time I've taken the Myers-Briggs (that is, every time I've been reorganized in to a new team at work)...

[dalmeny]

I feel honoured :)

I usually need something written down if a name is going to be matched with the face of a person I've just met. Business cards are good. I also remember people's names if I know of them (via fandom, say) before we meet in person. On the GUFF trip we asked everyone to write their name in a little red book.

dmw is much better at names and faces than I am. He's handy that way.

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

Out of Context, Out of Mind. I once spent half an hour at a concert trying to remember where I knew the young man standing near me. I was on the verge of going up to him and offering a hug because he looked so familiar I figured he *must* be a friend when I asked my SO. Good thing, too. He was the counter man at our little local grill. D'oh!

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

When I was teaching, I would learn all the students names within about 2-3 weeks for a class of 200-300. From this I conclude that I am pretty good at putting faces to names and vice versa. I also remember faces and names for quite a decent length of time, however, I lose names before I lose faces.