Two percent of the population has the almost uncanny ability to recognize and remember faces from chance meetings even years before. We talk about how and why AND tell you about a test you can take to see where you fit on the spectrum.
Here’s the link for the test!!!!
Super Recognizers Transcript:
Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton and I’m Trace Kerr, and it’s time for a Brain Storm.
TK: So I heard this NPR story about a Scotland Yard Super Recognizer.
AB: I like that idea.
TK: They are used to identify people of interest from closed circuit television. So let’s talk about what a super recognizer is. That’s a person who can memorize a person’s face in an instant and they’re able to recall them years later. So even if you only met once, like if I saw you across the room, then four or five years later if I bumped into you, I’d be like “Hey! I bumped into you at the so-and-so’s party!” and you don’t even remember the party. Well, there were people who were studying reasons for why people have trouble recognizing familiar faces. And these researchers, led by Russell Duchenne, they were doing some studies and then they had four people who had better than ordinary ability to memorize faces.
AB: But not memory overall in general.
TK: Well no, but this isn’t memorizing, this is this super recognizing thing. One person said “I learned to stop surprising people with comments like “Weren’t you at so and so concert last fall and I recognize you?”. Another one said “I have to pretend I don’t remember people because it seems like I’m stalking them.”
AB: It’s weird.
TK: Yeah, or they mean more to me than they do when I recall that we saw each other. And so they’ll be like “Oh! She remembered me!” and it’s like, no, I remember everybody. Don’t take it personally.
AB Before I had kids I would say I had, I would say a little better than average-I’m not a super recognizer, but I could probably remember “Oh hey, it’s Sally from fourth grade! How are you?” Now that I have kids that’s gone away, but totally is a little bit weird for people that don’t.
TK: And since we’re on a spectrum, so, in this paper, they tested the four people who were super recognizers against 24 other regular people. With the BFTW test-the Before they were Famous test.
AB: I was making up my on in my head. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger working in a Dairy Queen…
TK: Yes, or and they will also remove the hair and things like that, so you’re just looking at the facial features. And it was startling how much better the super recognizers did. They have graphs and, you know, you’ve got your straight line, which is the median, and your 26 people are kind sprinkled all around it on the lower 1/3rd and then the four were way up on thir own for recognizing faces.
AB: Even without the context of “Oh, he’s a redhead.”?
TK: Yeah, they don’t exactly know why some people are so much better at this. Most agree that being able to recognize faces is important. They found that infants demonstrate a preference for faces within an hour of birth, even if it’s just a paper plate with two eyes and a smile on it. They will look at those things, so we’re attuned to look at faces. And it does seem to be genetic. They’ve tested identical twins versus fraternal twins. So identical twins, they’re one egg...
