HUMANS CAN RECOGNIZE 5,000 FACES

New research suggests the average person can recognize 5,000 different faces. Psychologists at the University of York, England, embarked on the study after realizing that for all the work scientists have done on faces, they had never nailed down, even roughly, the number of faces the average human knows. They say it is the first evidence-based estimate of this figure. Through a series of recall and recognition tests on volunteers, the researchers discovered that the human ability to recognize faces varies enormously. The study found that people know between 1,000 and 10,000 faces of friends, family members, colleagues and celebrities, with most racking up about 5,000. The study was done in two parts:
– The scientists asked volunteers to spend an hour recalling as many faces as they could from their private lives – old school friends, work colleagues, past partners and colleagues. They then moved on to famous faces: celebrities, sports stars, politicians and so on. By recording how the volunteers’ recall rates slowed down, the psychologists estimated when they would run out of faces.
– In the next part of the study, the volunteers were shown thousands of photographs of famous people and tested on how many they recognized, even if they could not name the person.
* Don’t you love how they call people who do a study like this “scientists”?
* And this is valuable information to have because….???
* I guess it’s important if you work for People magazine. But beyond that…
* Human facial recognition. Great – another thing software can do better than us.
* The numbers may be off, because people like Cher, Michael Jackson, Mickey Rourke and Kenny Rogers have had about a dozen faces each.
* And, of course, politicians are two-faced.