In Biopsych, we often use prosopagnosia as a fun clinical example of what can go wrong with perception. However, it also appears that people can not only be impaired in facial recognition, but some are actually quite gifted–literally never forgetting a face. These “super recognizers” can recognize blurred faces, aged faces, and faces they have only seen in a crowd for a few seconds. Researchers are going to look for differences in brain activity that might account for this enhanced perception and memory.
"Super Recognizers" Can Even Pick Out Familiar Faces In Blurred Photos Like This One
If you want to test your face recognition abilities, the BBC has a fun test here. I have never believed that I’m very good at remembering faces, and I was surprised at how well I did on this test.
5 Comments
Leslie Ryan · February 6, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I did the test. I scored 100% on the “if I saw it” part and 87% on the “when I saw it part”. I think I missed 3 on the “when” part. It turned out that those were the 3 that I puzzled over as to when I saw them.
I thought that was pretty good. I took a moment to find something about the person to make a memory anchor. I should have also have done one other thing: paired each person with a 1 or a 2. One if I saw them in the first set and 2 if I saw them in the second set. eg. I see one eye, I see 2 freckles. I think that would have increased my recall.
My oldest son has a very good memory for faces. One day a friend he knew for one year in kindergarten came into the store where Eric worked. Now, it is important to note that 20 years have gone by. Eric walked up to this young man and said “Hi, Aaron!” Aaron didn’t recognize Eric but he did remember him from Ballard Elementary School in kindergarten. I was very impressed. Eric has a good mind for faces and names.
One day I was a reader-submitted picture in the newspaper. I was a couple sitting at a distance on the beach silhouetted by the sunset. The cation said “Couple at _______ enjoys the sunset.” I recognized them as my youngest son and his girlfriend. It was the tilt of her head and the shape of his head, their height difference. I asked him if they had been at this place on the date the pic was taken and they had been! I showed him the pic and he asked “How could you tell that was us?! There’s nothing to go on?” But I could. I thought that was interesting.
A super-recognizer I am not.
alyssa.fantin · February 23, 2010 at 5:38 pm
I have always thought that my memory was above average, however, this test showed me otherwise. I got a 91% on recognition, and a 68% on temporal memory. Looks like I fall right in the average zone, but maybe I can blame my scores on my lack of sleep (less than 6 hours last night). Yikes! Need to get back to my normal 8 hour a night schedule, since sleep deprivation does have plenty of consequences.
Jyso · February 24, 2010 at 6:41 pm
So here is a little known fact about myself that i have somewhat experimented with some family members. I cannot visualize faces for the life of me. Say a person’s name and ask me to create an image of that person in my head. nope, not gonna happen. It’s really difficult for me for some weird reason. I guess when i get right down to it though, if I struggle with it i can get a muddled picture of them but that’s beside the point. Interesting part of this is that if you ask me to do the same, think of something and then visualize it in my head, if that thing is an object such as, i don’t know, a hammer or a computer or a something more complex like a little table that the dentist has all of his or her utensils on with them all laid out…. BAM. got it not sweat! so what’s the deal? Why are faces so hard for me? Well, there’s probably plenty of really good reasons, complexity and unique characteristics and all that jazz. So i was surprised when i received my results. I got a 95% on the recognition and a 78% on the temporal score. I thought I’d be much lower than that honestly but i guess i’m pleasantly surprised too. ha . Also, i’m really surprised i did well seeing that i got 3 hours of sleep last night. yeah, dr. Freberg, that’s why i look so haggard when i walk into your class each morn.
Ps: this is Jason Chung
dennislee · February 26, 2010 at 11:50 pm
I took the face recognition test I did fairly well on both sections, 97% on recognition and 78% on memory. Growing up I always felt as though I was pretty good at recognizing faces. In a way, I always thought it was a little weird that I would remember faces so well. There have been numerous times where I’ve run into people I went to elementary school with (who I haven’t seen in almost 10 years) and I would instantly recognize them. I generally wouldn’t say hi, because I’m almost certain they wouldn’t recognize me. Then there are times, similar to test, that I would recognize a face but have no idea where I had seen the person before. I think it’s interesting how my facial recognition is strong but I’m terrible with names.
brianna2webb · May 9, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I did pretty well on these tests – 100% on if I saw it and 75% on when I saw it! I am not surprised that I did well on if I saw a face, as I frequently find myself knowing that I have seen or met someone but not being sure when, how, or where. However, I believe that something that advantages the test-taker on this is that we are looking at exactly the same photos. In many cases, it was not the face that sparked my memory but rather the colors in the image, the position of the camera, the number of people in the photo, or the clothes the person was wearing.
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