Blind to the face

Recognising other people by decoding the subtle contours of their face is a complicated task that we take for granted. But imagine if all faces looked the same and you couldn't tell whether someone was a stranger or your mother. Welcome to the world of the face-blind.

Prosopagnosia, the technical term for face-blindness, is an unusual condition the neurologist Oliver Sacks described in his bestselling book: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat.

Those with this condition are often no different from the rest of us in every other way. Because of this it is easy for people to go through life without realising there is an aspect of their perception that is quite unusual.

The science of creativity


As Pablo Picasso once pointed out, all children are creative; the challenge is to remain creative into adulthood.

Unfortunately public education systems around the world seem designed to crush creativity in favour of rote learning and test passing. As the years pass a fear of being wrong takes over from our natural creative tendencies.

Unlike mathematics, languages or the humanities, we are rarely taught about creativity, despite its importance to our lives. Yet the information is out there, waiting to be used.

If you would like to be more creative at work and at home—and that has to be most of us—the insights in this ebook will be useful.

Click here to find out more...

Published: 5 December 2004

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Images: Creative Commons License

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