Some people can't remember a face.The neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks wrote the famous phrase about this condition, known as face blindness or prosopagnosia, in his book "The man who confused his wife with a hat." But there are other people who have an extraordinary ability to recognize faces , even those of strangers.Scientists have studied these "super-recognizers", and have found that they are so good at remembering faces, as those who suffer from prosopagnosia are bad
Do you have a superior ability to recognize faces?
Great recognizers are rare.Josh P.Davis, a professor of psychology at the University of Greenwich in England, said that these individuals probably represent less than 1% of the population. He also said that Some London police officers are super-recognizable, and they use them to identify criminals in blurry camera images.
Of course, the opposite also exists.The first case of face blindness or facial blindness was reported in 1976.According to the NIH, being unable to recognize faces can arise from a stroke, traumatic brain injury or brain diseases, but approximately 2.5% of the population may be born with this condition, studies suggest.
But let's go back to the super-recognizers of faces.Harvard neuroscientist and colleagues were studying this condition, when they were contacted by a number of people who claimed to have an incredibly good ability to recognize faces.
«No matter how many years pass, yes I have seen his face before, I will be able to remember where, ”said a 26-year-old female doctoral student to researchers, adding that That was only with their faces.
The researchers contacted four subjects, including the young woman mentioned above, who talked about the moments when they recognized face by surprising themselves.Those moments in which had recognized people who were almost unknown , who had not seen for years and since then had aged (even from children to adults), or acquired a different hairstyle.They said they were able to recognize actors who had only minor roles in movies, television or commercials.All the study subjects agreed on something very curious: had to hide their super ability to avoid looking creepy.
In the study, Richard Russell, from Harvard University, and his colleagues designed tests to measure the ability of extreme facial recognition .They gave versions of these tests to the four super-recognizers, as well as to 25 "normal" people as a sample.The super-recognizers performed the test better than any other. The super-recognizers received a perfect score and they obtained better results than any of the "normal" ones, making clear an extraordinary difference.
Taken together, the results provide objective evidence that showed that the super-recognizers had a significantly better capacity than normal.
Do you want to know if you are a super-face recognizer? Try the official TEST here.
If you liked this topic, you can't miss our article on: How many faces are you able to distinguish?
Image: How Be John Malkovich, 1999 and Pixel Fantasy via Flickr
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