00:03According to a psychological study from 2012, most of us can recognize the face of someone we know in under
00:08a half second, but not everyone.
00:10Some people have a condition known as developmental prosopagnosia, where they either can't recognize familiar faces as quickly, or the
00:17faces of strangers look remarkably familiar.
00:19It was long believed to be a relatively rare occurrence, but now a new Harvard study suggests it might be
00:24more common than previously thought.
00:25Looking at 3,100 participants in the U.S., researchers found that not only does face blindness affect some 3
00:31% of people, but the condition isn't as simple as you have it or you don't.
00:35It's likely more of a spectrum, with the researchers writing, quote,
00:38First, the majority of researchers have used overly strict diagnostic criteria, and many individuals with significant face recognition problems in
00:45daily life have been wrongly told they do not have prosopagnosia.
00:47If this experiment's results are extrapolated to the entire U.S. population, that means around 10 million Americans have difficulty
00:54with recognizing faces, not a small number, and other researchers seem to agree.
00:59A 2022 study also suggested relaxing the criteria for the diagnosis of face blindness, suggesting that identifying more people with
01:05this difficulty could lead to better cognitive training and treatments.
01:12We'll see you next time, wherever we go.
01:14We'll EBD make
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