Face blindness or prosopagnosia is an actual, debilitating disorder. A recent Harvard study has revealed that the condition was more common than previously thought.

The study, published within the journal Cortex, found face blindness affects one in 33 people, up from the previous estimate of 1 in 40 people.

“Face blindness… will be brought on by a brain injury to occipital or temporal regions, known as acquired prosopagnosia, which affects one in 30,000 people in the US,” Joseph DeGutis, Harvard Medical School associate professor of psychiatry at VA Boston and senior writer of the study, told  Harvard Medicine News. 

There may be one other form of prosopagnosia brought on by genetic or developmental abnormalities. This condition affects people as a lifelong condition and is far more common.

“[That is] known as developmental prosopagnosia,” DeGutis said, IFLScience reported. “[It] affect[s] one in 33 people.”

Within the study, greater than 3,000 participants were enrolled in a web-based questionnaire and two objective tests. After asking in the event that they faced any difficulty recognizing faces, the researchers tested how hard it was for participants to recollect recent faces in addition to recognize famous faces.

Following evaluation, over 100 subjects were found to experience some type of face blindness. Specifically, out of the three,341 subjects, 31 people had “major” prosopagnosia, while one other 72 participants had a milder type of the disorder, the study found.

The statistics come to be one in 33 people affected by the condition, which is more common than the one in 40 people estimate, earlier believed to be true.

The difference within the incidence rate is because of strict diagnostic criteria, in line with DeGutis and his team.

“The vast majority of researchers have used overly strict diagnostic criteria and plenty of individuals with significant face recognition problems in each day life have been wrongly told they shouldn’t have prosopagnosia,” DeGutis noted.

“Expanding the diagnosis is vital because knowing that you’ve gotten real objective evidence of prosopagnosia, even a light form, can assist you take steps to scale back its negative impacts on each day life, resembling telling consequential coworkers, or in search of treatment,” DeGutis continued.

Researchers also opined prosopagnosia is a spectrum disorder versus a single-defined condition.

“Prosopagnosia lies on a continuum,” DeGutis said. “Stricter vs. looser diagnostic criteria employed in prosopagnosia studies previously 13 years have identified mechanistically very similar populations, providing justification for expanding the factors to incorporate those with milder types of it.”

With the revelation brought on by their study, the researchers wish to assist individuals who unknowingly have the disorder.

“In a world where social isolation is on the rise, especially in teens and young adults, fostering and maintaining social bonds and good face-to-face interactions are more vital than ever,” DeGutis concluded.