Recognition and a Secret Mission

I remember my mother, the day that we met,
A thing I shall never entirely forget;
And I toy with the fancy that, young as I am,
I should know her again if we met in a tram.

Thanks to ladyofastolat (I would link but the post is locked) I have learned a new word: prosopagnosia. Unfortunately, I also appear to be suffering from it. For those of you still languishing in ignorance, prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize faces. My case is not extreme (I do usually recognize my own family, when I meet them in familiar contexts), but having taken the two tests on this page I'm definitely "on the spectrum".

The stats: on the first test I scored 57%, and on the second 37%. The average scores are 80% and 85%, and the lower thresholds for possible problems are 65% and 50% respectively. Take them, and compare!

In slightly related news, today I was visited at work by a Goon. Not the Diana Wynne Jones variety, but the kind that vets people for sensitive jobs at the MoD. He wanted to know about a student I had taught, and after I had told him what little I knew, we got chatting on other subjects. I happened to mention (what was now much on my mind) that I'd always felt guilty about not recognizing those quiet students in seminars who never say much. (I was thinking to myself that from now on, with my proud new prosopagnosiac status, I could plead neurology and save much embarrassment for all concerned.)

"I'd remember them from the size of their tits," laughed the Goon - and before I had thought of a suitable riposte he had slid from my office, bound on another vital mission to protect the British way of life.

"What a jerk!" I said to myself. But it was much too late.

All the same, I think I would know him again.

Recognition and a Secret Mission

I remember my mother, the day that we met,
A thing I shall never entirely forget;
And I toy with the fancy that, young as I am,
I should know her again if we met in a tram.

Thanks to ladyofastolat (I would link but the post is locked) I have learned a new word: prosopagnosia. Unfortunately, I also appear to be suffering from it. For those of you still languishing in ignorance, prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize faces. My case is not extreme (I do usually recognize my own family, when I meet them in familiar contexts), but having taken the two tests on this page I'm definitely "on the spectrum".

The stats: on the first test I scored 57%, and on the second 37%. The average scores are 80% and 85%, and the lower thresholds for possible problems are 65% and 50% respectively. Take them, and compare!

In slightly related news, today I was visited at work by a Goon. Not the Diana Wynne Jones variety, but the kind that vets people for sensitive jobs at the MoD. He wanted to know about a student I had taught, and after I had told him what little I knew, we got chatting on other subjects. I happened to mention (what was now much on my mind) that I'd always felt guilty about not recognizing those quiet students in seminars who never say much. (I was thinking to myself that from now on, with my proud new prosopagnosiac status, I could plead neurology and save much embarrassment for all concerned.)

"I'd remember them from the size of their tits," laughed the Goon - and before I had thought of a suitable riposte he had slid from my office, bound on another vital mission to protect the British way of life.

"What a jerk!" I said to myself. But it was much too late.

All the same, I think I would know him again.