Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Never forget a face? Research suggests people know an average of 5,000 faces
For the first time scientists have been able to put a figure on how many faces people actually know- a staggering 5,000 on average.
The research team, from the University of York, tested study participants on how many faces they could recall from their personal lives and the media, as well as the number of famous faces they recognised.
[...] Dr Rob Jenkins, from the Department of Psychology at the University of York, said: "Our study focused on the number of faces people actually know- we haven't yet found a limit on how many faces the brain can handle.
[...] For the study, participants spent an hour writing down as many faces from their personal lives as possible -- including people they went to school with, colleagues and family. They then did the same for famous faces, such as actors, politicians, and other public figures.
The participants found it easy to come up with lots of faces at first, but harder to think of new ones by the end of the hour. That change of pace allowed the researchers to estimate when they would run out of faces completely.
The participants were also shown thousands of photographs of famous people and asked which ones they recognised. The researchers required participants to recognise two different photos of each person to ensure consistency.
The results showed that the participants knew between 1,000 and 10,000 faces.
R. Jenkins, A. J. Dowsett, A. M. Burton. How many faces do people know? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2018; 285 (1888): 20181319 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.1319
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @06:33PM (3 children)
does that include porn star faces?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Gaaark on Thursday October 11 2018, @06:38PM
All your porn faces belong to me!
I dunno...my 'monkey circle' is pretty small. I'm probably closer to the 1000 faces people.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @07:10PM
Mine only includes porn star faces.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @10:20PM
If you're looking at their faces, you're doing it wrong.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @07:24PM (1 child)
Think about it for a bit. What is a "face"? Your face in 20s, 30s 40s all different. Identical twins have same/different "faces".
A "face" looks different if you view from the left, right, top, bottom, left-bottom, right-top, when smile from the left, when smirking from the right top, when ...
How the fuck do they quantify the number of "faces"?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday October 11 2018, @10:18PM
Looks like we've got a flat-facer troll
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday October 11 2018, @08:41PM
I probably know 10000 faces ... and would be hard pressed to match them to 100 names.
But hey, I can name almost every country capital in the world !
Weird brain.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cmdrklarg on Thursday October 11 2018, @08:42PM (2 children)
Faces I remember. Names? Unless I happen to use them on a regular basis I will forget them. You can tell me your name and I'll have forgotten it a few seconds later.
I'll run into people I've met only a few times, and I'll think "they look familiar" but 9 times out of 10 I won't remember their name.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by donkeyhotay on Thursday October 11 2018, @09:02PM (1 child)
I have the same problem. It helps if I repeat their name when I first meet them, but even then it's a struggle. I marvel at the people who seem to be able to remember everyone they meet. I met former Missouri Governor (and later Senator) Kit Bond once when I was 17. I saw him again something like twelve years later and before I even introduced myself he reached out to shake my hand and call me by name. I was floored!
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday October 11 2018, @11:35PM
I think it's a matter of resource allocation. In my experience the more technical knowledge a person has the less social, and vice versa.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by donkeyhotay on Thursday October 11 2018, @08:57PM (1 child)
A couple of years ago I met someone who has prosopagnosia, commonly known as "face blindness". This woman, who is nearing 50, has had this all her life and learned from an early age how to use other indicators in order to distinguish people close to her. For instance, she remembers that one daughter has blue eyes, while the other has brown. Otherwise, she cannot tell her two daughters apart. It takes her a long time to get to "know" someone well enough to "recognize" them. She travels a lot, doing public speaking, and eventually made a decision at her talks to just come right out and tell people that she has face blindness. She tells people that it is helpful to re-introduce themselves to her if it's been more than a few minutes since she's looked at them -- just a quick, "Hi, it's Bob," sort of thing helps.
I had never heard of the condition before her talk, but I've been fascinated with the idea ever since. So, most people know about 5,000 faces. Imagine not really knowing even one face -- not even your spouse or child. It's something nearly everyone just takes for granted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @01:45PM
I've got issues like that. For me, it's likely the result of having no ability to visualize, so if there's any changes, it's extremely hard to identify people, and that includes myself if I shave or get a different haircut.
But, on the flipside, I'm pretty good at telling identical twins apart and excellent with micro expressions as I can't really see the whole face at once.