Why some people don't remember faces. How to remember faces: seven main tricks Less attractive faces are more memorable

As statistics show, there are very few people in the world who have a photographic memory that allows them to remember every person by sight. Moreover, this skill can be extremely useful in moving up the career ladder or establishing important business contacts.

All Courses Com decided to take a closer look at the problem and help its readers learn to better remember people's faces.

Before treating any problem, you need to understand its causes. Why do many people complain of poor memory for faces? The reason may be undeveloped visual memory, inability to recognize facial features, inattention to the person himself, poor eyesight, as well as deep self-absorption (this usually affects people in creative professions), and others. Here are some techniques you can use to to solve this problem.

We observe intelligently

When trying to remember a person's face, use the concept of intelligent observation. How does the method differ from a simple “See and remember” method? Usually, a person who remembers looks at the face of a new acquaintance as a whole and therefore, as a rule, does not remember anything. It is wise to focus your attention on distinctive details: features of the shape of the nose, the shape of the eyes, complexion and its shape, features of the hairstyle.

Division into parts

You should describe your new acquaintance from top to bottom, that is, from head to toe. Having stopped at the face, you should describe in turn: hairstyle, forehead, eyebrows, ears, eyes, nose, lips, wrinkles (if any) and the feature of the chin.

All details must be described on a three-level scale: narrow, normal and wide. On some elements you can make several characteristics, for example, the nose can be described as humpbacked, linear, the size of the wings, and so on.

Tony Buzan Method

Which in certain circles is called the method of social etiquette, instructs people who want to learn to remember faces to be polite and show genuine interest in the new interlocutor.

It will help to highlight a new acquaintance if the person remembering him respects him as a person and imagines that in each of him there is a universe of new qualities and colors. You should pay more attention to the person, keeping him in sight and observing his habits. A new acquaintance about whom more information is known remains in memory for a longer period.

Self-discipline and self-hypnosis

A person may have an excellent memory, but if he is not confident in himself and constantly pushes himself, he will get confused and will not remember the simplest things. This is also the reason why a new face may simply not be imprinted in memory. The consciousness of almost every person is capable of assimilation, processing and remembering a huge amount of information. It is important to believe and convince yourself that the new face will definitely be remembered.

Open your eyes

Everyone who is poorly sighted knows why such a person does not greet first. He just sees very poorly. Therefore, if your vision requires it, wear glasses or contact lenses.

It has been revealed that in most cases, when a person complains of poor memory for faces and has poor vision, the problem is almost certainly that he does not wear or rarely uses glasses/lenses. A person with good eyesight focuses on details that will prevent him from confusing similar people. This is an important point and this may also be the problem.

Associate faces with character or appearance

How to remember a face forever

To remember for a long time the people you met during the day, remember them after 20-25 minutes, then after an hour, and for more lasting memory, in the evening before bed. Remember faces in detail, information about people that you learned additionally. Look through the accounts of new acquaintances on social networks, especially sections with photos. If you are meeting a group of people, it is convenient to ask for business cards. All that remains is to reliably associate the owner of the business card with herself - and the person will remain firmly in memory. It is important not to confuse where whose business card is - when getting acquainted, you should pay attention in conversation with each person in turn and thereby gain time for memorization. Take short breaks, looking at business cards and their owners, associating the design of the cards with new acquaintances.

Separate long-term and short-term memory. Short-term memory is also called working memory, and with its help sensory images are remembered for several hours or days. Long-term memory remembers for an indefinitely long time. Long-term memory is further divided into episodic and semantic. Developments and any personal experience are classified as episodic memory. Vocabulary, various phenomena, recognition of faces and objects, events are classified as the semantic part of memory.

If the memory of people, animals and things by their appearance, sound and smell is impaired, this phenomenon is called agnosia. There are auditory and visual agnosia, tactile and gustatory. Visual agnosia is also called mental blindness, and this concept includes prosopagnosia, object and, presumably, misrecognition of words and letters, called alexia. This also includes metamorphopsia, or distortion of the perception of objects, micro- and macropsia, namely a decrease or increase in the real volume of an object.

Prosopagnosia

If there are disturbances in the temporal parts of the brain, which is important - on both sides, then distorted recognition of faces and objects occurs, their misrecognition. If a person is unable to recognize faces, this is called prosopagnosia, and if he is confused in recognizing familiar things, this is object agnosia.

Some patients do not even recognize their own face in the mirror, but at the same time they retain the memory of all other signs, and as soon as something reminds him of the person standing opposite him, he remembers everything he knows about this person. Previously, it was believed that this disorder was very rare, and was most often caused by traumatic brain injuries of various types. But in recent years, it has become clear that at least 1 in 50 people have such an illness of varying degrees of severity, although they do not have any history of injury or deviations from developmental standards, and their vision is also fine. It is now believed that difficulties with recognizing faces begin in early childhood, and heredity may be involved.

Some people may admit to having the condition, but in general prosopagnosia remains a very little-studied disorder, because most healthy people cannot even imagine how it is possible not to recognize faces. Many of the patients have learned to live with this illness, but most feel guilt and anxiety when they cannot recognize familiar faces. Some people do not know that they suffer from this disease, but even those who know prefer not to talk about it either at work or among friends. This disease is poorly studied, and therefore patients are rightly afraid of getting fired instead of words of support.

Treatment

Any cognitive disorder is difficult to correct, and the search for drugs that could make life easier for patients is still ongoing. Most often, a variety of nootropic drugs are prescribed, but the list of conditions that can be alleviated in this way is very small. Improvements occur with cerebrovascular insufficiency, with the consequences of stroke and cerebral infarction, with depressive states, with asthenia and traumatic brain injuries.

With this disease, much greater importance should be attached to various memory training exercises. There are quite a few special exercises for this, most of them can be performed in. Memorization of poems, texts and melodies is used, and drawing helps a lot. It is often easier for those suffering from this disease to assimilate information that is emotionally colored, has associations from tactile sensations or situational associations.

This is easy to understand from children. :) They are open and emotional, they run to greet me with loud joy when I come home.
From my mother - it’s clear that she loves me because she cares very much, communicates respectfully, is glad when everything is fine with me and communicates vividly (not on a record, automatically, but always in a new, different way and delves into in what I think and feel, and so on).
From a husband, love is manifested in his actions, decisions, in what he does in life and how he changes internally. Also in that he misses me. Hurries home. I strive to please and get upset when I feel hard or sad. .
Love from God is felt in constant miracles and in the changes that occur in life. Hints, support, fulfillment of desires and aspirations. And also in what gives strength and opportunity.

probably not

Absolutely.

• I am a living manifestation of this. I achieved my goal after all, it was not easy, however, we are together, and not enough time - 2 years.

  I'm sure at least 2 people adore me! Son and daughter! :) As for the rest, the flag is in their hands :)

  nju ne skazu chto ljublju,no nravitsja!!!
  za chto nju vo mnogix pesnjax est" smisl (kone4no smisl est" ne tol"ko v repe)
  nravitsja takt, zvuchanie....
  a ljubimix trekov mnogo!!!

  It's about female psychology. A girl loves a young, or not so young, man, but he does not reciprocate her feelings. It clicks in the girl’s head - “AHA! He doesn’t love me! I love him with all my heart, but oooh....bastard!”
  CONCLUSION: Look for mutual love.

  neither for nor against...

When networking with industry peers at a conference, you don't want to rely on the standard "Hello, my name is..." or a name tag. You want to do something original to make an unforgettable impression on people. In fact, it is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance.

What is the connection between memory and appearance?

Scientific studies that have found differences between memory and appearance tell us that it's custom details that have the greatest chance of standing out. You can meet a person in a public place, look at him for a few seconds and remember this meeting for a long time. An older lady could amaze you with a luxurious red dress, a stranger sitting opposite you in the waiting room with a pocket watch or a pleasant compliment.

Psychologists say that the most beautiful person in the room cannot automatically be classified as the most memorable person. Appearance types are divided by skin, eye and hair color, and the rarest ones are the most memorable. It is unlikely that you will remember another long-haired brunette from several dozen girls of the same type, but you will remember the red-haired lady with freckles for a long time.

Some of the most memorable people don't have the beauty of top models or the stature of duchesses. But their unique characteristics (protruding ears, interesting eye shape or hooked nose), coupled with unusual behavior, force others to pay attention to them.

Less attractive faces are more memorable

It is believed that ideal facial features and external attractiveness attract attention. However, experts are quick to debunk this myth, arguing that we are more likely to remember less attractive faces. This became clear based on data from a scientific study conducted in 2014. Distinctive features or blemishes (such as scars or birthmarks) are more likely to be etched into your memory. These findings may explain why people remember completely ordinary strangers, while forgetting faces with ideal features that most would consider beautiful.

Understanding Beauty

Other studies show that beautiful people may be better understood because they command more attention when communicating. One study found that we tend to pay more attention to attractive fellow humans on a subconscious level, resulting in a deeper understanding of personality. The experiment involved strangers spending three minutes with each other in a confined space. The results supported the assumption that physically more attractive individuals are more desirable to interact with.

About eye magnetism

Further analysis of the research results revealed the phenomenon of beauty in the eyes of the interlocutor. The author of the experiment, Dr. Lorenzo, and his team found that positive impressions are directly related to the nature of communication. Agree that not all people are lucky enough to be born dazzlingly beautiful, but they have a good chance of being liked with the help of their inner charm and charm. These findings have important implications for all people with low self-esteem. Fortunately, interpersonal attraction is made up of a number of factors, including personality traits and personal taste preferences.

"Two of a Kind"

Researchers also found that the most appropriate impressions of each other are made by individuals with a typical average appearance. This can be explained by the fact that people of average attractiveness are not used to judging someone “by their cover.” It is customary to treat a beautiful book more politely and read it more carefully, but an edition in a regular binding can be read to the core. Thus, people with attractive facial features can expect increased attention, while people with average appearance are perceived in a more positive way.

Conclusion

No matter what you look like, people form an intuitive impression of you. They will remember not your beautiful eyes, but the pleasant feelings that communication with you left. The first impression turns out to be a more important aspect in assessing your overall personality. Give a stranger a compliment and he will definitely remember you.

For as long as I can remember, I have always had a problem recognizing people. To remember a person, I need to communicate with him for a long time and regularly, otherwise I cannot remember his face. As a child, this didn’t bother me too much, and I didn’t even know that other people had it wrong. But in adulthood this became a serious problem. Now I’m 35, I work in a large company (there are about 200 employees in the office).
I constantly find myself in difficult situations because of this feature of mine, because... It's very difficult to remember new people. If a new employee comes to our small department, then it’s not so scary, because... I remember the place where this person sits, and gradually begin to transfer this person to the category of remembered ones. It usually takes about a month for complete memorization. This is provided that I know exactly where the person is sitting, greet him in the morning and see him during the day in our department, but do not communicate at work. If I meet this person in the corridor, then most likely I simply will not recognize him. After about a month, I already begin to recognize a person by their gait, clothes, and even begin to remember their face. Then a moment comes when I completely remember the person and can easily recognize him in the corridor and even on the street. True, there is still no confidence on the street, especially if the person is dressed in something new and I meet him far from work during non-working hours.

With those whom I see every day, friends, close people, good acquaintances, there is no such problem. I recognize everyone easily. Moreover, somewhere in the brain detailed data about each such “remembered” person (clothing, timbre of voice, gait, facial expressions, gestures) is stored. I perfectly remember conversations with this person in detail, I can quote something that this person told me many years ago, I remember a bunch of little things like the color and style of sandals that my friend was wearing when we walked together along the embankment in 1993 .

But when it comes to new people... The worst thing is when a new employee is hired and I have to work with him. Usually a person is taken through all departments and introduced. I forget his face and name as soon as the person disappears from sight. I can’t describe it at all, i.e. the maximum is something like “a girl, beautiful, tall.” All. I don’t remember my face, color or hair length. I can remember clothes if it is something strange, ridiculous, unusual. But there must be something out of the ordinary. I really sympathize with unusual people who are easy to remember (overweight, with piercings, tattoos, scars, etc.). A year ago, the office was renovated and everyone was moved to new places. I almost went crazy, because... there were several people whom I recognized only by their seats (I knew where they were sitting), but could not find them by their faces.

For the last three months I have been constantly worried because I just can’t remember the two new namesake lawyers. They work in the same office and periodically one or the other calls me. Because I don’t communicate with them for a long time, but I still can’t remember them. Sometimes I run into them in the hallway and only realize that it is one of them when they start discussing legal issues with me. Several times there was a situation where I did not immediately understand that these were lawyers (there are other employees from other departments whom I cannot remember) and it was difficult to structure the conversation so that it became clear who I was talking to. There was a very difficult situation for me when one of them asked me to bring documents to her. I went into the office and didn’t know which table to go to (the tables are at opposite ends), because... I didn’t remember which of them I had talked to in the corridor before. I was lucky that one of them responded to me, and I realized that it was she who was waiting for the documents. They would probably take me for a crazy person if they knew that I had been communicating with them for three months and didn’t remember their faces.

And how hard it is when someone comes up to me in the corridor and asks me to send him something. I have to twist it out - ask this person to send me a letter with a request first, so that I don’t forget about his request.
It's very difficult to watch films with a lot of characters. Sometimes you have to watch the beginning several times, because... I can't remember anyone at once. It helps a lot if I watch it with my husband. He tells who and where.
My own face, by the way, also seems very unmemorable to me. Before, I didn’t even understand how my friends recognized me. One day I was shocked that a stranger approached me on the street and said that he recognized me from a photograph that he saw in my classmate’s photo album. Photos that showed a class of 40 people. 40, Karl! For me this is fantastic.

Why am I writing to the community? I want to know if there are people with a similar problem. Maybe this is a common problem in general, but it’s just not discussed? How frustrating is it to tell someone you can't remember them and that it will take time? At work, I told only one colleague about my problem, who helps me navigate when I once again cannot remember a person.