imagining your own face vs. other people's faces

I get this! It's almost like object impermanence with people. It is tough for me to have conversations with people I haven't seen in a while. I have a bit of phone anxiety because sometimes I can't picture who I am talking to even if they are very close.

This is really interesting. I also can not picture, or describe faces, and have challenges remembering what others look like. However, I can vagley remember what they look like if I've seen a photo of them. I will be able to remember the photo specifically, even if I cant picture it.

I could describe myself to a sketch artist as well as I could family or people I've seen often, but the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of my own face is high school photographs that were displayed at my grandparents' house that I looked at often, then I mentally update it to my current state of aging. One very interesting conversation I had recently with a visualizer led me to Google spatial memory/imagination, and I found that it is possible to have Aphantasia but have spatial memory. My spatial memory is fairly strong, but I'm sure this is another brain process that exists on a continuum, so it would be weaker for some. It makes sense to me that recall of others' features would be stronger than self-recall if someone doesn't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror or photographs of themself.

Hey Jamie - this is totally true for me. But I didn't even realise it until I read your post. When I tried to 'describe' my face, I came up with 'eyes, nose, mouth, brown hair'. Shape of mouth? No idea - it's a mouth. Size of eyes? Um, eye size? Any stand out features? Mmm, don't think so. Curiously, I've observed when I use CBD (I have it for medicinal puposes) that I get a surprise when I see my own reflection. Like I don't recognise myself. I figured this was something to do with being a bit high, but now I wonder if it is mores o related to having aphantasia? And the reason I only notice it occuring when I'm high is because other times, my logical brain 'knows' that the reflection is me, but when I'm on CBD, I tend to get out of my logical brain and into my emotional one. So I'm more surprised when I see my reflection. It takes me a hot minute to "accept" (or reason) that the image looking back at me, is me. Thanks for the post, it's given me something to ponder.

I guess we’re all different. I would not be able to describe my wife of 36 years or my daughters. I certainly couldn’t describe myself (though I suspect I might look a bit like Tom Cruise 😉). I really struggle with faces - I’m not Face Blind but definitely have problems. I couldn’t tell you if close friends have beards or wear glasses - though I recognise them when I see them (as long as I’m expecting to see them). So, for me, I have equal difficulty describing my own face or someone else’s