Letter: Do I know that voice?

From Kate Hopkinson

Face blindness appears to be much more common than is generally appreciated (25 November, p 34). On reading the article, it immediately occurred to me that I suffer from “voice blindness”. I have a lifelong phobia of phone conversations, which I always assumed must be due to marginal deafness (although there was no other evidence to suggest I am deaf at all). I now realise it is not that I cannot hear the voice at the other end, it is that I am not confident of being able to recognise it.

This is especially embarrassing with people I know extremely well. I can’t even be sure to recognise the voices of family members. Long-term colleagues pose another painful problem. Is this a well-known phenomenon? If not, and if there others like me out there, I hereby designate voice blindness as Hopkinson’s syndrome. I’d love to hear from fellow-sufferers – just don’t phone to tell me about it.

From David Fine

I see a face as clearly as any other object, but I cannot hold the image and register it against a bank of remembered faces.

I recognise faces down to the level of types (a round-faced, red-bearded man for instance) but often I can’t tell whether that particular round-faced red-beard is my colleague or a stranger. I describe the condition as “facial dyslexia”. As people with dyslexia have difficulty recognising words, I have problems with faces. If I can “spell out” the face by analysing the individual features I may deduce who the person is, but the process is deliberate and takes time compared with the instant recognition described by normal people. My interpretation, as a sufferer, of the failure of the fusiform face area of the brain to “adapt” is that to prosopagnosics every face is a new one

Timsbury, Hampshire, UK

London, UK