My older sister went off to college when I was eleven. When I was fourteen, I was as tall as her.
We're sisters and look like sisters. Her hair is straight. Mine is wavy. I'm slightly taller and there are some other differences, but we favor each other -- or did when we were younger -- enough that you could readily see a family resemblance.
So for some number of years, anytime she came to town to visit and ran into friends of the family while out and about, they called her by my name. They assumed she was the sister who still lived in town.
I got married and moved away and went to Germany for nearly four years. When I returned to the US from Germany and visited my hometown again, I ran into a friend of the family who promptly called me by my sister's name since she was the one they were used to seeing in town at that point.
Although humans devote brain power to the ability to recognize faces, people rely much more on contextual cues than they realize. There is lots of research into that fact.
If you usually see someone in a particular place and you run into them elsewhere, you may not recognize them. If they usually are in a uniform and you run into them dressed differently, you may not recognize them. etc.
The fact that people notice less than they think they do about such things lends itself to pranks like the Person Swap prank in the following video:
In contrast, most studies find that only 15 to 20 percent of people self identify as disabled. This means at least three times as many people have some degree of impairment than is generally assumed.
In fact, it means that three out of five people are impaired and only two out of five are not. This makes "handicapped' people the majority, not a minority group.
Contrary to what most people think, there is no standard issue human and there is no clear, bright line between handicapped and able bodied. People having varying degrees of ability and then it sometimes crosses some threshold for some reason and suddenly gets recognized as a handicap when it may have been gradually deteriorating for years.
Identifying an impairment can be very empowering and can help an impaired person find ways to accommodate the thing they don't do well. Unfortunately, it sometimes gets them not only a stigmatizing label but a psychologically damaging campaign of brainwashing telling them they are terribly broken and doomed to a lesser life rather than "Oh, you have this little hiccup that can be a problem in certain specific situations. Here are some coping mechanisms."
Life works better when people get told honestly "Yeah, you do this less well than most people and it can be a big problem in some situations, but, no, it doesn't have to just RUIN your life. Here are ways to live fully in spite of this one little brain glitch getting in the way sometimes."
We're sisters and look like sisters. Her hair is straight. Mine is wavy. I'm slightly taller and there are some other differences, but we favor each other -- or did when we were younger -- enough that you could readily see a family resemblance.
So for some number of years, anytime she came to town to visit and ran into friends of the family while out and about, they called her by my name. They assumed she was the sister who still lived in town.
I got married and moved away and went to Germany for nearly four years. When I returned to the US from Germany and visited my hometown again, I ran into a friend of the family who promptly called me by my sister's name since she was the one they were used to seeing in town at that point.
Although humans devote brain power to the ability to recognize faces, people rely much more on contextual cues than they realize. There is lots of research into that fact.
If you usually see someone in a particular place and you run into them elsewhere, you may not recognize them. If they usually are in a uniform and you run into them dressed differently, you may not recognize them. etc.
The fact that people notice less than they think they do about such things lends itself to pranks like the Person Swap prank in the following video:
Person Swap
In contrast, most studies find that only 15 to 20 percent of people self identify as disabled. This means at least three times as many people have some degree of impairment than is generally assumed.
In fact, it means that three out of five people are impaired and only two out of five are not. This makes "handicapped' people the majority, not a minority group.
Contrary to what most people think, there is no standard issue human and there is no clear, bright line between handicapped and able bodied. People having varying degrees of ability and then it sometimes crosses some threshold for some reason and suddenly gets recognized as a handicap when it may have been gradually deteriorating for years.
Identifying an impairment can be very empowering and can help an impaired person find ways to accommodate the thing they don't do well. Unfortunately, it sometimes gets them not only a stigmatizing label but a psychologically damaging campaign of brainwashing telling them they are terribly broken and doomed to a lesser life rather than "Oh, you have this little hiccup that can be a problem in certain specific situations. Here are some coping mechanisms."
Life works better when people get told honestly "Yeah, you do this less well than most people and it can be a big problem in some situations, but, no, it doesn't have to just RUIN your life. Here are ways to live fully in spite of this one little brain glitch getting in the way sometimes."