Daniel Devlin lives in the same house as his children and sees them every day – yet he is unable to recognise them at all.

丹尼爾?德夫林（Daniel Devlin）與他的孩子們生活在同一屋檐下，天天見面，然而，丹尼爾卻認不出自己的孩子。

Mr Devlin, 46, from Nunhead, London, is living with a bizarre condition called prosopagnosia, also known as face-blindness, meaning he struggles to recognise faces - even those of his own family.

來自倫敦南海德（Nunhead），今年46歲的德夫林先生患有一種奇怪的病癥，叫做人面失認癥（prosopagnosia），又稱臉盲癥。得了這種病也就意味著他有臉部識別障礙，即使是自己家人的面孔也辨認不出。

Mr Devlin, a painter, has been forced to memorise his family's voices and body language in order to know who they are.

德夫林先生是一名畫家，他不得不靠記憶家人的聲音和肢體語言來分辨他們誰是誰。

But reading voices and body language doesn't always work, and has even mistaken another boy for his son when picking his children up from school before.

但是通過聲音和肢體語言來分辨也不是次次奏效的，他曾經在去學校接孩子時把別的小男孩誤認成自己的兒子。

Mr Devlin said: 'Humans have a special ability to recognise people by seeing their faces, I really don't have this ability.

德夫林先生說：“人類有一種通過看臉來辨認出他人的特殊能力，但是我卻沒有這種能力。”

'Maybe a good way to imagine what it's like to have prosopagnosia is to try and recognise people by what their hands look like.

“試試通過看手來認人，這可能是了解得了人面失認癥的人是什么感覺的好辦法，”

'Every person has a different hand but if someone showed you a photo of someone's hands, you might struggle to recognise who the person is, even if that person turns out to be someone you know very well.

“每個人的手都是不同的，但是如果有人給你看一張某個人的手部照片，你可能無法輕易分辨出那個人是誰，即便那是你熟知的人。”

?'I just thought that everyone was the same or maybe I just wasn't putting in as much effort as others to remember people.

“我本以為大家都是這樣的，也或許只是我沒有跟別人一樣花費很多精力去記住別人的長相而已。”

'If I saw my wife Katarina somewhere unexpected and she pretended not to know me, then I'm not sure I would know it was her.

“如果我在某地與我的妻子卡塔林娜不期而遇，而她假裝不認識我，我不能確信自己可以認出那是她。”

'It often leaves me in some awkward situations, especially when I don't recognise people that I should or think I know people that I don't.

“這使我常常陷入尷尬的境地，尤其是當我認不出那些我應該認識的人或以為自己認識對方但其實并不認識的時候。”

'I have learnt to recognise people based on their body language and voices instead.'

“我已經學會了通過肢體語言和聲音來認人。”

Experts said propagnosia is not linked to problems with vision, memory or intelligence.

專家稱人面失認癥與視覺，記憶或者智力問題無關。

Instead, it is thought to be the result of impairment in the right 'fusiform gyrus' of the brain - a fold that appears to coordinate facial perception and memory.

相反，專家認為這是大腦右側梭狀回（fusiform gyrus）受損的結果，這部分腦回可能有協調面部認知和記憶力的作用。

This could be as a result of a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or some neurodegenerative diseases.

中風，創傷性腦損傷或者某些神經變性疾病都可能造成右側梭狀回受損。

Or, in cases such as Mr Devlin's - the condition is present at birth, and the pathways in the brain responsible for recognition never developed properly.

或者，同德芙林先生的情況一樣——臉盲癥是先天性的，大腦中負責識別的通路沒有正常發育。

Though he now knows he has had the had the condition all his life, Mr Devlin was only diagnosed in the last few years, through sheer chance.

雖然他現在知道了這一癥狀將伴隨他一生，但是德夫林先生是前幾年才偶然被確診的。

He said: 'I heard a programme about it on the radio and realised that's what I had.

他說：“我在廣播里聽到了一期關于臉盲癥的節目，意識到自己得了這種病。”

Test confirmed he was suffering from face-blindness.

檢測結果證明他確實得了臉盲癥。

It is thought the condition affects up to one in 50 people, the equivalent of about 1.5 million people in the UK.

有人認為至少每50人中就有一人患臉盲癥，相當于在英國人當中有150萬的人有臉盲癥。

Some people with prosopagnosia may only struggle to recognise a familiar face, but in more severe cases sufferers cannot distinguish a face as being different from an object.

一些人面失認癥患者可能只是在識別熟悉的面孔時有些困難，但情況更嚴重的人可能無法分辨出臉與其他物體的差別。

Some sufferers are unable to recognise their own faces.

有些患者甚至無法認出自己的臉。

Vocabulary

bizarre: 怪異的

prosopagnosia: 人面失認癥

awkward: 尷尬的

impairment: 損傷

fusiform gyrus: 梭狀回

traumatic: 創傷的

neurodegenerative: 神經變性的

pathway: 通路

diagnose: 診斷

（譯者：旋轉木馬0930 編輯：劉明）