I do visually process things now and then - I have extremely good recall skills, and for example in my art appreciation classes in school I could memorize the looks of various artists MUCH more quickly than my classmates (and to this day can tell a Rothko or a Miro or a Vasarely by a very quick visual). I also recognize faces extremely well and can frequently remember the context in which I know a person, say a 2nd- or 3rd-tier actor in a show, I can recognize them from a different movie or television program and half the time tell you who they played.

I also write my lines longhand when I'm memorizing them, but I also listen to them and gain a HUGE amount of sense memory once blocking is added.

But yeah, I'm with you on the reading thing. And I certainly wouldn't have expected someone to not even recognize a major character on *hearing* the name, even if he hadn't bothered to figure out how to pronounce it beforehand.