Only Wallowing Allowed

Chris Pine at the premiere of Zachary's new play

As someone who has prosopagnosia, I love the way it's portrayed in Brilliant Minds. If you don't know much about the condition, here's some things that might be interesting:

Even though it's called face blindness, face blind people can actually see faces. I see this misconception a lot, and the way they show it from Wolf's perspective on the show kinda reinforces that, but faces aren't actually just blobs. We can see noses, eye colour, mouths, all the features, we can see anything you see. It's just that the faces don't really register as belonging to someone. I see your face, but I don't recognise you in it.

Connected to that, people with prosopagnosia can also read facial expressions, though many do struggle with it a bit, especially with the subtle ones. A lot of face blind people, myself included, do have autism, so it might have to do with that, too.

Depending on how face blind you are, you can actually learn to recognise faces to somme extend. My prosopagnosia is quite severe, though not as severe as Wolf's, I think, and I do recognise my parents and my siblings by looking at their faces. However, I usually have to double check by looking at the distinguishing feature I recognise them by. Wolf probably recognises Carol as easily.

That distinguishing feature thing, by the way? Absolutely spot on. We do that.

Context is really important for face blind people. I recognise my colleagues, whom I see every day, quite easily, if I see them at work, where I expect them to be. I still don't recognise them by their faces, but I see them and know immediately who they are. If I see them somewhere other than at work, I won't recognise them unless they make themselves known to me. That's why it makes sense to me that Wolf's prosopagnosia doesn't come up in the later episodes. We see him mainly at work, mainly interacting with people he expects to see in that context.

The more tired you are, the harder it gets to recognise people. It's kinda obvious, but recognising people if your brain can't do that at a glance requires quite a lot of energy. So if you're tired, you can't recognise people you usually know.

It's much more difficult to recognise people in pictures. I don't know anyone in a picture. I don't even know myself in a picture. It's mind blowing to me that people recognise people in real life after only seeing pictures of them.

Face blindness can lead to anxiety. I used to be constantly worried that people think I'm ignoring them. It can make you nervous to even leave the house.