The human brain is hardwired to recognize faces. But what if you can't?

Freelance science writer Sadie Dingfelder is the author of the new book Do I Know You?, which explores human sight, memory and imagination. Little, Brown Spark, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company hide caption

toggle caption Little, Brown Spark, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company

Humans are hardwired to see faces, even in inanimate objects. We have a lima bean-shaped part of our brains dedicated to facial recognition. But this process of seeing a face and recognizing it isn't always straightforward.

Science journalist Sadie Dingfelder is one of 10 million Americans who are face blind, or prosopagnosic. For Dingfelder, that means she struggles to recognize the faces of people she knows and to recall rich memories of who people are.

She was also diagnosed with: aphantasia, which makes it hard to form mental images; severely deficient autobiographical memory, which makes it hard to remember things about her life; and stereoblindness, which means she can't perceive depth with both eyes.

"My memory is very different from neurotypical memories and I have no ability to do that sort of mental time travel," Dingfelder says. "Everything in my life is just a story I may have read... And so in some ways, that makes being a writer the perfect job for me."

Her new book, Do I Know You?came out Tuesday. In the book, she dives into the science of sight, memory and imagination.

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Today's episode was produced and fact-checked by Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Kwesi Lee was the audio engineer.