What is it like to be face blind? With Joe DeGutis, PhD, and Sadie Dingfelder

Speaking of Psychology

Kim Mills

Health & Fitness, Life Sciences, Science, Mental Health

4.3 • 781 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2021

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After a lifetime of thinking that she was just a little bit bad at remembering people, Sadie Dingfelder learned that she had prosopagnosia, a disorder more colloquially known as face blindness. Harvard psychologist Joe DeGutis, PhD, who runs the research study that Dingfelder participated in, joins her to discuss how people with face blindness see the world, why it’s such an interesting disorder to study, and promising treatments that his lab is exploring. Are you enjoying Speaking of Psychology? We’d love to know what you think of the podcast, what you would change about it, and what you’d like to hear more of. Please take our listener survey at www.apa.org/podcastsurvey. Links Joe DeGutis, PhD Boston Attention and Learning Lab Music "Mystery" by ispeakwaves courtesy of freesound.org Sponsor APA 2020 Virtual Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Imagine living in a world where everyone looks vaguely familiar, but you never know for certain exactly who anyone is.
0:09.0	Your old classmates, your coworkers, your friends, and even your family members, all can appear at first glance to be friendly strangers who seem to know you.
0:19.0	That's what life is like for people with prosopagnosia
0:22.9	or face blindness. Historically, the disorder was thought to be rare, but more recent research
0:28.8	suggests it may affect as many as one in 50 people. Last year, Sadie Dingfelder found out she
0:35.1	was one of them. Sadie is a former colleague of mine.
0:38.3	She used to be an editor at APA's magazine,
0:40.3	and I later hired her to be editor of our website.
0:43.3	After a lifetime of thinking that there was something
0:46.3	just a little bit different about her brain,
0:48.3	Sadie took part in a study at Harvard Medical School
0:51.3	that finally gave her some clarity about her condition.
0:55.1	She wrote about the experience for the Washington Post magazine.
0:58.5	So what does it like to have prosopagnosia?
1:01.3	And what have psychologists and other scientists learned about the causes of face blindness?
1:05.9	Can it be treated?
1:07.2	If so, how?
1:09.3	Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association
1:14.6	that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life.
1:18.6	I'm Kim Mills.
1:20.6	If you enjoy speaking of psychology, the conversation doesn't have to stop when the podcast is over.
1:28.5	Get unlimited access to hundreds of videos about the latest in psychology for just one low
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kim Mills, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Kim Mills and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.