Mr Devlin, 46, from Nunhead, London, is living with a bizarre¹ condition called prosopagnosia, also known as face-blindness, meaning he struggles to recognise faces - even those of his own family. 

 

Mr Devlin, a painter, has been forced to memorise² his family's voices and body language in order to know who they are. 

 

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.

 

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

 

'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. 

 

'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. 

 

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

 

'If I saw my wife Katarina somewhere unexpected³ and she pretended not to know me, then I'm not sure I would know it was her. 

 

'It often leaves me in some awkward⁴ situations, especially when I don't recognise people that I should or think I know people that I don't.

 

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

 

Experts said propagnosia is not linked to problems with vision⁵, memory or intelligence.

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