Hyperfamiliarity

I must have slept funny on the lateral temporo-occipital junction of my left hemisphere last night, because all day I’ve suffered from the inverse of prosopagnosia. Almost a dozen times I’ve turned to a glance of a former coworker, family member, or someone else I recognize but don’t see regularly, only to find a stranger who barely looks close enough to serve as a stunt double.

Interestingly, this area of the brain is also involved in binocular alignment. Perhaps I’m prone to this since I suffered amblyopia as a child, which was barely corrected in time so I still suffer a phoria (exophoria if I recall correctly). I’ll have to be more careful with that cortex.

I posted this in January 2007 during week 1714.

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