Strangers in the Mirror

Summary

Radiolab: "Strangers in the Mirror"

Date: June 16, 2010
Hosts: Robert Krulwich, Jad Abumrad
Guests: Dr. Oliver Sacks, Chuck Close
Theme: Understanding face blindness (prosopagnosia) as experienced by two remarkable individuals: a renowned neuroscientist and a famous portrait artist.

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Episode Overview

This episode of Radiolab explores the mysterious and often isolating neurological condition called face blindness (prosopagnosia) through a live conversation with Dr. Oliver Sacks and famed painter Chuck Close. Both suffer from the condition, but their approaches to life and adaptation differ starkly. The discussion, recorded at the World Science Festival, delves into the practical, emotional, and creative implications of not recognizing faces, even those of loved ones—or themselves.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is Face Blindness?

• Definition: A neurological disorder, often congenital, that impairs the ability to recognize faces—even familiar ones.
• Personal Experiences: Both guests recount lifelong challenges in remembering or identifying people by their face alone.

"When they look at a face for 10, 20, 60 minutes, the other guy's face just doesn't get in or stick into their heads."
— Robert Krulwich (02:32)

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2. Learning They Were "Unusual"

• When Did They Realize?

  • Oliver Sacks: Realized as a child when he struggled to recognize friends except by distinctive features or movements.

    "If Jonathan Miller was brought in paralyzed and totally straight, would you know it was Jonathan Miller?" (04:29)
    "[...] when I have got to know someone well, then I will recognize the face. But it takes a long while." — Oliver Sacks (04:36)

  • Chuck Close: Only recognizes people contextually (e.g., if they enter his studio, he assumes they are meant to be there).

    "I can spend an evening talking to someone, looking at them across a table, and I see them the next day, I'd have no idea I'd ever seen them, nor do I remember their name." — Chuck Close (05:04)

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3. Art, Memory, and Coping Mechanisms

• Chuck Close’s Artistic Process:

  • Driven by his disability, Chuck's method flattens and dissects faces into dozens of painted "cells," allowing memory and recognition through stillness and abstraction.

    "Everything in my work is determined by my learning disabilities. So face blind. I'm sure I was driven to paint portraits by being face blind." — Chuck Close (05:44) "If I can flatten an image out and scan it the way I work, I can commit it to memory. And I have almost photographic memory for things that are flat and still." (05:56)

  • Flatness vs. Movement:

    • Moving faces are new every moment: "You move your head a half an inch, to me, it's a whole new face I've never seen before." — Chuck Close (06:21)

  • Not Even Recognizing Themselves:

    • Oliver Sacks offers a humorous anecdote:

      "...several times I have started apologizing to large, clumsy, bearded people and realize that it's a mirror." — Oliver Sacks (06:30) He once mistook another bearded man for his own reflection (06:42–07:33).

• Emotional Recognition

  • Both report they can detect emotion in others, even without facial recognition:

    "I think I'm actually pretty good at that. ... I journey across that landscape like Gulliver's Lilliputians crawling over the face of a giant, not knowing that they were on the face of a giant..." — Chuck Close (07:57) "I think I'm as sensitive to emotion as you know, and little things, including little grimaces which indicate that someone is lying." — Oliver Sacks (09:02)

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4. Cognitive and Social Adaptation

• Memory Strengths & Weaknesses:

  • Chuck Close: Severe trouble with numbers, required visual tools to add/subtract, never learned multiplication tables; had to develop elaborate coping mechanisms in school. He identifies as both face blind and deeply dyslexic (09:55).
  • Oliver Sacks: Excellent memory for facts, written material.

• Social Ramifications & Strategies:

  • Chuck Close copes through charm, humor, and openness about his disorder.

    "We have to prove to the people who we see that we care about them, even though we're not going to recognize their faces... you have to be charming... you have to be fast on your feet..." (10:35) "Oh yeah. Self deprecating humor will cover a great deal. And if you laugh at yourself, you're giving permission for other people to see it as less than the most tragic condition." — Chuck Close (14:08)

  • Oliver Sacks tends to withdraw and rely on his assistant to help avoid embarrassing social encounters.

    "I tend to withdraw. Well, it doesn't solve it. It often makes it worse." — Oliver Sacks (12:08)

• Finding Home in Other Spheres:

  • Sacks feels more comfortable with landscapes and animals than people; photographs scenery and plants when traveling. Recognizes neighbors' dogs in his building, not the humans (13:11–13:19).

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5. Strategies for "Seeing" People

• Noticing Salient Features over Faces

  • Both rely on distinctive features (hair, ears, glasses) or context to deduce people's identities.

    "I'm better at recognizing caricatures than portraits because in a caricature salient features are exaggerated. And for me it's to some extent I have to make an inventory of salient features." — Oliver Sacks (14:56)

• Breaking Down the Problem

  • Chuck's incremental, cell-by-cell approach to painting faces mirrors his problem-solving strategy:

    "If you break it down into small enough bite size units, incremental units, then I make this big overwhelming problem into thousands of little more solvable problems." — Chuck Close (15:29)

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6. The Visual Test & Gender Discrepancy ([22:25])

A live audience experiment challenges recognition:

• Removing Hair/Context: Celebrity faces are shown minus hair to see if people can recognize them.
• Outcome: Only a handful get all right—all are women.

  "They're all women. That's interesting." — Robert Krulwich (24:26)

• Discussion: Many have mild to moderate difficulty with faces; some may secretly experience a form of prosopagnosia.

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7. Science, Genetics, and Prevalence

• Acquired vs. Congenital:

  • Face blindness can arise from brain injury/tumor, but lifelong, inherited forms exist—often under-recognized (21:01, 21:44).

• Genetics:

  • Often familial: "strongly familial, meaning genetic, perhaps." — Robert Krulwich/Oliver Sacks (21:50)

• Prevalence:

  • Severe forms: 2–3% of the population—6 to 8 million in the US (22:18).

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8. Empathy & Connection Despite Isolation

• Through Art & Story:
  • Both celebrate human connection via creative work—narrative (Sacks) or visual (Close)—despite their neurological disconnect.

    "You celebrate your connectedness with humanity in a really important way. ... Empathy is the basis of, I think, the mortar that holds society together..." — Chuck Close to Oliver Sacks (20:01)

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9. Coping, Acceptance, and Community

• No Known Cure:

  • "Is there any cure for this? Not so far as I know." — Oliver Sacks (19:32–19:40)

• Humor & Vulnerability:

  • Both emphasize the importance—and inevitability—of humor, self-deprecation, and advocacy for awareness.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You move your head a half an inch, to me, it's a whole new face I've never seen before." — Chuck Close (06:21)
• "Several times I have started apologizing to large, clumsy, bearded people and realize that it's a mirror." — Oliver Sacks (06:30)
• "One of the great quotes I've ever heard is from the great painter Robert Rauschenberg... 'you have to find other venues for your intelligence.'" — Chuck Close (10:35)
• "Self deprecating humor will cover a great deal. And if you laugh at yourself, you're giving permission for other people to see it as less than the most tragic condition." — Chuck Close (14:08)
• "Empathy is the basis of, I think, the mortar that holds society together..." — Chuck Close (20:01)
• "There are a lot of people who may be leading lives of embarrassment and partial disability and secrecy and shame." — Oliver Sacks (25:03)

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Important Timestamps

• [02:32] Introduction to the idea of face blindness and guests
• [04:17] Early recognition of face blindness
• [05:44] Chuck Close explains how face blindness shaped his art
• [06:30] Sacks's mirror anecdote
• [07:57] Emotional recognition despite face blindness
• [09:55] Coping: Memory and learning disabilities
• [10:35] Social adaptation; using charm and humor
• [14:56] Using features/context to recognize people
• [15:29] Chuck Close's method of breaking down faces
• [16:11] Technical/artistic description of Close’s process
• [18:06] Sacks’s vision loss and its effects
• [19:32] No known cure for prosopagnosia
• [20:01] Empathy and creative connection
• [21:01] Face blindness: acquired vs. familial
• [22:18] Prevalence statistics
• [22:36–24:26] Live facial recognition test & gender observation
• [25:03] Social stigma and silence

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Tone & Style

The episode is characterized by warmth, humor, and deep empathy, blending live audience interaction with personal storytelling and scientific explanation. The mood is reflective but never somber, punctuated by laughter, self-deprecation, and a celebration of adaptation through art and intellect.

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Conclusion

"Strangers in the Mirror" offers a profound look at the inner worlds of two extraordinary men who cannot remember faces, even as they commit themselves to portraying and understanding humanity. Their stories illuminate not just the peculiarities of the brain, but the universal quests for connection, meaning, and self-acceptance amid profound difference. For listeners, the conversation is a reminder of both the challenges and creative potential that come with seeing the world differently.

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Transcript

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[Robert Krulwich]

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[Chuck Close]

And I couldn't figure out why.

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[Oliver Sacks]

Oh, wait, you're listening.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab.

[Robert Krulwich]

Radio Lab shorts from WNYC.

[Jad Abumrad]

And npr. You have a good sense of what to. What you want to tell me?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

All right. Hey, I'm Jad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I am Robert.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab, the podcast my. Can I just start us off with a moment of appreciation? I'm very excited for what you're gonna play for us today because sometimes, you know, you talk to people on stage, smart people, and you did one recently for the World Science Festival.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

And we put it on every so often on the podcast, but we don't do it enough.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, we're gonna do it now.

[Jad Abumrad]

Let's do it.

[Robert Krulwich]

So in. In just a moment, I'm gonna introduce you to two gentlemen who are nothing short of remarkable. But before I do, I just. And so we go now to the Danny and Sylvia Kay Auditorium at The campus of Hunter College in Manhattan.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wa just set it up for us a little bit. Like, what are we about to do?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, so the idea of this World Science Festival evening, there are people who wander around the world who have a problem which is called face blindness. Weirdly, both these men are face blind. So when they look at a face for 10, 20, 60 minutes, the other guy's face just doesn't get in or stick into their heads. I chose two people. One of them is Oliver Sacks, our regular Oliver. He's a neuroscientist, and he's like.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oliver is face blind.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, boy, is he face blind. I mean, he.

[Jad Abumrad]

He can't recognize faces.

[Robert Krulwich]

But you'll see the other guy, who we're going to call Chuck. The other guy is one of the greatest portrait artists in the world. He has, as many of you know, for decades now, created art. Big paintings. Some little, but usually huge paintings, mostly of faces. Here he is, Chuck.

[Chuck Close]

Close.

[Robert Krulwich]

I thought it would be interesting to bring these two people together. Face blind Oliver. Face blind, Chuck. And discuss what many people think of as a very rare situation.

[Chuck Close]

Who are you guys? Again.

[Robert Krulwich]

We don't know who you are either. All right, so the both of you, how long ago did you discover, if indeed that's the right word, that you were unusual in this regard? Oliver?

[Oliver Sacks]

I think probably when I. Hi to everyone.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, you can't hear. Okay, so tell you what. I'll just stick this thing in front of you and say something.

[Oliver Sacks]

Say something.

[Robert Krulwich]

That's better. So you missed the first part of the program, but Oliver was saying, so you were in a class with other kids. If you had a friend who was like a pal, would you take a beat to know who it was?

[Oliver Sacks]

Yeah. So say Jonathan Miller became a good friend. He's tall and gangly. He has red hair, and his movements are fluid and evocative and wonderful.

[Robert Krulwich]

But if Jonathan Miller was brought in paralyzed and totally straight, would you know it was Jonathan Miller? Do you have to see the hair and the movements?

[Oliver Sacks]

No. When I have got to know someone, well, then I will recognize the face. But it takes a long while, and.

[Chuck Close]

Even then it has to be reinforced. Right? You have to keep seeing them.

[Robert Krulwich]

So if you've spent four minutes with the person and then you walk away and come back two minutes later. Do you know who the person is? Does 20 minutes with the person Time make a difference?

[Oliver Sacks]

I tend to lose it within minutes.

[Robert Krulwich]

You? Same problem.

[Chuck Close]

Same problem. I can spend an evening talking to someone, looking at them across a table, and I see them the Next day, I'd have no idea I'd ever seen them, nor do I remember their name.

[Robert Krulwich]

But when they open their mouth, would you say, oh, that's the one, or not even?

[Chuck Close]

No. And a lot of it's context. If they walk into my studio, I figured they'd walked into my studio because they're supposed to be there. Then I interview them for a while to find out who they are.

[Robert Krulwich]

Are you just trying to subtly find like, so who is this person?

[Chuck Close]

Who the hell is this person? And why are they in my studio?

[Robert Krulwich]

Now, in your case, if that person were to suddenly flatten out and work and be still on a page.

[Chuck Close]

Well, everything in my work is determined by my learning disabilities. So face blind. I'm sure I was driven to paint portraits by being face blind. That is, I know now that if I can flatten an image out and scan it the way I work, I can commit it to memory. And I have almost photographic memory for things that are flat and still. Still, yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

So being in space and moving around makes the face invisible. Fixing it makes the face memorable.

[Chuck Close]

You move your head a half an inch, to me, it's a whole new face I've never seen before.

[Robert Krulwich]

Wow. Have you ever not recognized yourself?

[Oliver Sacks]

Yeah, I'm always. Well, several times I have started apologizing to large, clumsy, bearded people and realize that it's a mirror.

[Robert Krulwich]

That's a mirror.

[Oliver Sacks]

It's a mirror, but it's even gone a stage further than that. Fairly recently, I was in a cafe in Chelsea Market with tables outside. And while I was waiting for my food, I do what people with beards often do. I started to preen myself. And then I realized that my reflection was. Was not doing the same thing. And that inside there was a man with a beard, possibly you, you know, who wondered why I was sort of, you know, making faces at him. So I may take other people to be myself as well as recognize myself.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, I just. I was wondering how you. Once you realized that you were preening your beard in front of a bearded. Did you, like, look down?

[Oliver Sacks]

Yeah, I did look abashed. I often look abashed.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, now let me just ask about. Is this just a face problem? What about emotional? Can you. If you can't see a face, can you ever read sadness? Happiness?

[Chuck Close]

Yeah, I don't think I have any trouble reading how someone is feeling. I think I'm actually pretty good at that. You know, the way I work is to make this kind of brobdagnalian world in which I make the face into a landscape and I journey across that landscape like Gulliver's Lilliputians crawling over the face of a giant, not knowing that they were on the face of a giant, but knowing everything about that face. And then what I do is I put all that information together, the kind of nose and nostril, the corners of the mouth, whatever, and I can commit it to memory. So I know that it's no accident that I was driven to make portraits of people who matter to me.

[Robert Krulwich]

But if the person whose face you can't read lips are trembling, or if they have a downcast look in the eye, or if they're being brave, can you assign emotion to a facet of a face?

[Chuck Close]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

And you too?

[Oliver Sacks]

Well, I look.

[Robert Krulwich]

Talk to the mic.

[Oliver Sacks]

Well, I can't paint or whatever, but I think I'm a sensitive to emotion as you know, and little things, including little grimaces which indicate that someone is lying.

[Robert Krulwich]

Here's a difference I sense just to complete this sort of look of what you can and can't do. Oliver can remember. When I ask you about things you've written 22 years ago, a lot of times if you talk to an author about something they wrote 22 years ago, they give you a sad look of, you know, well, that was a long time ago. But you seem to remember much of what you have learned. You seem to remember very little of what you have learned. Well, let me be gentler about that. Like when you were in high school, it was time to take the test you once described to me. An all night bathtub?

[Chuck Close]

No, I used a kind of sensory deprivation tank in order to memorize things. And it's very hard for me. I don't know how to add or subtract without using the spots on dominoes. A visual system. I still don't know the multiplication tables. I didn't take algebra, geometry, physics or chemistry. If the junior college in my hometown had not taken every taxpayer, son or daughter, I could never have gone to college.

[Robert Krulwich]

Wow, so you're a wreck. But the coping part of this for both of you has been kind of interesting because both of you are very, very smart. So you just put your intelligence where you have to.

[Chuck Close]

One of the great quotes I've ever heard is from the great painter Robert Rauschenberg, who was about the most learning disabled, dyslexic person I've ever known. And he said when you're this way, you have to find other venues for your intelligence. You have to prove to your teachers that even though you're not going to be able to spit back the names or dates that you care about the material. And we have to prove to the people who we see that we care about them, even though we're not going to recognize their faces and maybe remember their names. So you have to be charming. You have to be a bull. You have to be fast on your feet and figure out how you're going to explain your way out of the fash, that you don't know who they are or remember them.

[Robert Krulwich]

Do you find people calling you, like, a snob or. I mean, like. What do you mean, you don't know me? I'm the host of this dinner party kind of thing.

[Oliver Sacks]

Yes. Usually my assistant Kate will say to people beforehand, before they come in, don't ask if he remembers you, because he'll say no. And to me, she says, don't just say no. Say, I'm awful with faces. I wouldn't recognize my own mother. But I'm not good at bull. I tend to withdraw.

[Robert Krulwich]

You withdraw. So you solve it by going into a corner and not talking to anybody?

[Oliver Sacks]

Well, it doesn't solve it. It often makes it worse.

[Chuck Close]

But my approach is to be more outgoing, more friendly, whatever, and to try and charm my way through things. And I also lecture and talk all the time about face blindness and my other problems so that people are aware that I have them and they'll cut me some slack.

[Robert Krulwich]

But you go out, like, every chance you can, right? And you stay in every chance you can, right?

[Oliver Sacks]

Well, more or less. I don't stay in. But there are other things beside human beings. And when, for example, I first visited Australia, I came back with hundreds of photos, and people looked through them and said, yes, but didn't you meet any human beings? Because all my photos were of scenery and plants where I'm very at home.

[Robert Krulwich]

And I noticed that when you get in the elevator in your apartment, you don't have any idea who the neighbors are, but you do look down, right?

[Oliver Sacks]

Oh, I know. They're dogs.

[Robert Krulwich]

So if they were to switch dogs, you'd just be.

[Oliver Sacks]

Well, I wouldn't notice.

[Chuck Close]

Yeah, but if you see them without the dog, you don't know who they are, right?

[Oliver Sacks]

No, I don't know.

[Robert Krulwich]

So this charm offensive that you go on, what does that like how if you have no idea who you're talking to, what are the charm moves?

[Chuck Close]

Well, not always. Is it charming? I didn't recognize a woman I'd lived with for a year. Two years later. And there's no amount of charm that is going to get you through a Mistake like that.

[Robert Krulwich]

Do you just. Do you make fun of yourself?

[Chuck Close]

Oh yeah. Self deprecating humor will cover a great deal. And if you laugh at yourself, you're giving permission for other people to see it as less than the most tragic condition. It is funny, you know, it's funny. I wish I didn't have it, but it's funny. What about.

[Oliver Sacks]

Lots of neurological conditions are comic. They can be both awful and comic. And it's important.

[Chuck Close]

Well, there's a gallows humor in rehabilitation hospitals for that very reason.

[Robert Krulwich]

What about. Let's narrow down the techniques here. Can you sometimes not see the face but see the hair, the ears, something?

[Oliver Sacks]

Absolutely. If someone has large out sticking ears or hooked nose or a little triangular beard, or if the glass is of a particular sort. I'm better at recognizing caricatures than portraits because in a caricature salient features are exaggerated. And for me it's to some extent I have to make an inventory of salient features.

[Robert Krulwich]

You talk about Gulliver and that process. Do you think of what you do as an expression of the situation you find yourself in?

[Chuck Close]

Sure, in every way. I mean, I have trouble in a global sense with the whole. But if you break it down into small enough bite size units, incremental units, then I make this big overwhelming problem into thousands of little more solvable problems. I've just found a way to, you know, take my deficits and use them rather than banging my head against the wall.

[Robert Krulwich]

Let me show you Lyle. This is Chuck 15 and then we'll do Chuck 16. So in Chuck 15 it's going to be a person, you know, named who is Lyle?

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait now what's happening? What is this right here?

[Robert Krulwich]

So, Jan, what you should do is you should imagine a. It's a detailed slide and what you see is lots of boxes with almost like mirror like shiny nuggets in each box.

[Jad Abumrad]

Is this when you're looking at a Chuck Close painting, really close, is that what you're describing?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yes, it's a detail. So it's the lower lip and chin of somebody. Somebody who he calls Lyle. When people stand right in front of Lyle's mouth, there's a little bit of confusion. You can't quite read it right away.

[Chuck Close]

Well, the closer you get to something, normally the more information you. But the closer you get to one of mine, the less information you have. You have information, but when you step.

[Robert Krulwich]

Back, these very abstract flat little cells suddenly turn into a very interesting face.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, here's what I don't understand though. If he's blind to the face. How do you even build it up? Like, don't you have to be able to see the thing that you're building to.

[Robert Krulwich]

If he can fix it, which the photograph does.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, he takes a picture first.

[Robert Krulwich]

He takes a picture first, and then what? Then he graphs it so he makes it into lots of little boxes. It looks like a giant checkerboard. And then he goes into each checkerboard, and he then repaints it magically. When you step away, there is the thing that you can't see.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's pretty interesting. So he's able to see the details within those boxes well enough to be able to construct them and then trust that what will emerge is a face.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yep. And the magical part is not only do you suddenly get the reveal of the face, but. But with the reveal comes a sense of the person. Okay, so let's go back to the situation. So now, Oliver, you have been losing your depth perception. So he. He's now go. He takes the world in 3D and puts it into 2D in all these fleshy and interesting ways. You have always been, all your life, a 3D man.

[Oliver Sacks]

Passionately.

[Robert Krulwich]

Passionately. What's happening to you? You now?

[Oliver Sacks]

Well, now I've lost the sight of one eye. Everything for me is on a plane and on a flat surface.

[Robert Krulwich]

Does that mean that when you look at art, that things that used to bore you, now the flat things get better and spatial things get worse?

[Oliver Sacks]

Well, there has been a paradox in that. For me, previously, until a few months ago, the world consisted of solid objects residing in space and with space between them. Now the objects are, as it were, painted on a flat plane. And I think that the sense of visual composition, which is not a word I ever use, a concept I ever had, strongly, I think that is stronger. Unfortunately, I can't paint, but I do, in fact, find myself enjoying paintings more, especially sort of rather flat medieval ones. I partly feel I'm in a sort of 13th century world, and I'm sitting.

[Chuck Close]

Here with one eye closed, which is what I've done my whole life. Well, because I have double vision. If I have both eyes open and, you know, so I close one eye and I flatten the world out, and I have a much better chance of getting around in it. So you see the wrinkles on this eye?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Oliver Sacks]

Yeah, you have.

[Chuck Close]

Because it's been closed virtually my entire life.

[Robert Krulwich]

By the way, is there any cure for this that we know that if you have this. If this facial blindness, does anyone get cured of it?

[Oliver Sacks]

Not so far as I know.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Oliver Sacks]

But, you know, I think it's important to say. And, you know, I put. Portrayed myself as sort of withdrawn or helpless, but I think I also have a vivid love of humanity, as Chuck has. But for me, the portraits take the form of narratives of stories.

[Chuck Close]

Well, your words paint the most specific portraits of people's lives. And I always have identified your characters as vivid a portrait as anything thing anybody could do in any other art form. You celebrate your connectedness with humanity in a really important way. I mean, it's a way that we can identify with even if it's a problem we don't have. Empathy is the basis of, I think, the mortar that holds society together and telling stories in a riveting way that allows us to empathize and care about these people. My grandfather had Tourette syndrome, and reading about a character with Tourette syndrome in one of your books, I cried through the whole thing.

[Robert Krulwich]

Can I ask about the cause of this condition? You can get face blindness from a stroke, right? Can you get it from a tumor?

[Oliver Sacks]

Yes, yes. Or head injury or whatever affects a particular part of the brain, a small area in the visual cortex. People call it the fusiform gyrus, the fusiform face area. Actually, there are a number of different face areas, and normally these connect up with memories of faces and things. But something which was not recognized until very recently and is still very insufficiently recognized is what Chuck and I have, which has lifelong face blindness and which is often strongly familial.

[Robert Krulwich]

And there, if you do strongly familial, meaning genetic, perhaps.

[Oliver Sacks]

Yes.

[Robert Krulwich]

How widespread is this condition? The two of you have it.

[Oliver Sacks]

The best estimate is that fairly severe. I mean, there may well be a symmetrical curve. Chuck and I are in the worst 2 or 3%, but probably not the worst 1%. There are people who are far, far worse.

[Robert Krulwich]

So you give me a guess. You think it's like 10% of the world? 1%.

[Oliver Sacks]

The fairly severely affected people are 2 to 3%, which is what, 6 to 8 million people in this country.

[Robert Krulwich]

Let's. Let's do a test to see whether this audience. Let's just see how. How good or bad you guys are. We're going to do a little fun test of your face. And the way it works is that 10 celebrity faces.

[Jad Abumrad]

What is this?

[Robert Krulwich]

So here's what's happening. We decided to give the whole audience a face test. 10 celebrity faces will be flashed on the screen for 15 seconds each. We took 10 very famous celebrities. They included the Prince of the United States of America, fabulous movie stars, from the past and the present.

[Jad Abumrad]

You just put their face up and say, do you recognize them?

[Robert Krulwich]

We put their faces up, but we erase their hair.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, just the face?

[Robert Krulwich]

Only the face.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's interesting.

[Robert Krulwich]

So imagine, like, Johnny Depp, but no hair.

[Jad Abumrad]

Take away his hair. The question is, would they recognize.

[Robert Krulwich]

Would you recognize this person?

[Jad Abumrad]

I would think I would think people would recognize.

[Chuck Close]

I mean, well, so would I.

[Robert Krulwich]

But when I read out the names. Here I am reading out the names. Number six is Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp.

[Chuck Close]

That's what he's like without hair.

[Robert Krulwich]

That's what he's like without hair.

[Jad Abumrad]

People sound surprised.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm going to ask for a show of hands.

[Chuck Close]

All right, now.

[Robert Krulwich]

And so then I said, well, I. Please raise your hand if you got any person right. Anyone at all? Almost everybody. Oh, me, me, me. Lower your hand if you only got one or two right. Okay, so now some hands go down. Lower your hand if you only got three, right. So now.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, we're beginning phrasing this in an odd way. Only got three, right.

[Robert Krulwich]

Lower your hand if you only got four right.

[Chuck Close]

Only is such a funny word.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, it's just a. Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thank you, Chuck.

[Robert Krulwich]

We keep going, please. Now lower your hand if you only got nine right. The remaining hands.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, how many hands are up at this point? Point. That's six out of, like, a thousand.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yep. How many the remaining hands are. I got 10. Could you stand if you got 10? I just like to see who you are. Could the number of people.

[Jad Abumrad]

What?

[Robert Krulwich]

They're all women.

[Chuck Close]

Wow.

[Robert Krulwich]

They're all women. That's interesting. All right, sit down. Sit down. Super people. How many people got none right? Could you please rise?

[Oliver Sacks]

Absolutely.

[Robert Krulwich]

Absolutely none. Let's see how they're more men. I wanted to know if anyone was just totally blind. And about 10 people were totally blind. Got none right at all. My wife got none right. Oh, my God.

[Chuck Close]

Yeah. My wife.

[Robert Krulwich]

She was amazed. So this is the thing. So the question then becomes, so, wow, a lot of people really do have this problem.

[Oliver Sacks]

So there are a lot of people who may be leading lives of embarrassment and partial disability and secrecy and shame.

[Chuck Close]

I evolved all sorts of coping mechanisms with dyslexia, many of which are now taught to people who have other problems. But there are unfortunately no real answers to coping with.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, you have some. Charm it out.

[Chuck Close]

High. Well, I mean, you're not. You're not going to lessen the deficit by having a good attitude or trying harder or whatever. It is what it is.

[Robert Krulwich]

I want to thank the World Science Festival to Brian Greene and Tracy Day, who run the thing. It comes every spring in New York City.

[Jad Abumrad]

Lots of scientists, and boy, does it come. It comes like a comet. Yes.

[Robert Krulwich]

And we over at Radiolab, Jan was there this year.

[Jad Abumrad]

Animals.

[Robert Krulwich]

Animals, yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

Like we haven't done that enough.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, like, we don't know faces. But it's the World Science Festival, so we say hello to the world.

[Jad Abumrad]

We say thank you to science, thank you to festivals.

[Robert Krulwich]

We know how to party with the best of them.

[Jad Abumrad]

And thank you to you for listening.

[Chuck Close]

Thank you.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Jad.

[Chuck Close]

I'm Robert.

[Jad Abumrad]

See you. There may be trouble ahead.

[Robert Krulwich]

But while there's moonlight and music and love and. Hi, this is Alicia Sonsmo, Radiolab listener from Grinnell, Iowa. The Radiolab podcast is funded in part by the National Science foundation and the Sloan Foundation. Thank you.

[Oliver Sacks]

End of message.

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[Oliver Sacks]

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[Jad Abumrad]

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