Science reveals "why some people never forget faces"?

 

Science 

Science reveals "why some people never forget faces"?

Have you ever met someone only once, and then been surprised later to find that they remembered your face as if they had seen you yesterday?
They are called “super-recognizers”... and now science is revealing the secret behind their amazing ability.

They look more intelligently

A new study from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia has found that these people do not look more than us, but rather look more intelligently.
Unlike others, they automatically capture the most distinctive features of the face, those small details that make each face unique.
But the less good news is that this skill isn't a trick that can be learned. According to lead researcher James Dunne, "It's an automatic and dynamic way the brain works without conscious effort," as reported by Science Alert.
The study relied on eye-tracking technology and eye-tracking analysis of 37 people with exceptional facial recognition abilities, and 68 people with average abilities.

extraordinary skill

Researchers have observed that people with exceptional skills direct their gaze directly to the most significant features: subtle curves, the spaces between details, the unique borders of the eyes or mouth… everything that makes a face “special”.
To analyze the results accurately, eye-tracking data were fed into sophisticated machine-learning algorithms, which were shown to become more accurate in recognizing faces when they adopted the super-recognizers' gaze pattern, compared to the pattern of ordinary people.
The study indicated that this superiority begins from the very early stages of vision, perhaps from the level of the retina itself.

Previous research by the team has also confirmed that these individuals treat the face as if it were a puzzle piece, that is, parts that are taken apart before the brain reassembles them into a single, clear image.
This style, as described by researchers, is similar to caricature; when you exaggerate the distinctive features, the face becomes easier to recognize, and it seems that people with exceptional memories do this subconsciously.
But while these findings may help improve facial recognition systems in the future, scientists emphasize that humans still have an edge over artificial intelligence thanks to their ability to pick up on social and contextual cues.

Evidence also points to genetic roots for this ability, and it is not limited to humans alone, but plays a key role in the social behavior of many primates.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, adds a new link to understanding one of the brain's most complex skills: how we recognize faces and why some of us excel at it to an extraordinary degree.