“Super-recognizers” have an uncanny ability to recognize and remember faces | Hacker News Reader

“Super-recognizers” have an uncanny ability to recognize and remember faces

nytimes.com

14 pointsfleaflicker10 comments

I share this characteristic (although I'm not yet sure how close I am to these folks on the continuum, as I've never been tested), along with another person I went to high school with.

My friends joke that I’m a stalker — I used to remember so many details about everyone," she said. “People get weirded out. I'd love to see research performed that tested the relationship between this ability and others linked to memory.

Also, here's the study: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~rrussell/Super-Recognizer...

On a related note, facial recognition works off a different set of regions in the brain compared to regular long-term memory. You can actually train yourself to memorize certain things using your brain's "facial recognition system".

Chess Grandmaster Susan Polgar learned (inadvertently, perhaps) from a very young age because of her father's training. She can easily recognize a board configuration just by glancing at it. Her brain recognizes various sub-configurations and she is able to duplicate the layout with very little effort. She can't perform the same task with a random configurations though, but chess at her level is rarely random.

http://www.tvthrong.co.uk/my-brilliant-brain/my-brilliant-br...

I worked with a guy in Ibiza many years ago that had this ability. He was the manager of a popular bar where the guests were tourists that would stay in Ibiza for one or two weeks, and maybe come into the bar four or five times during that time. Over a year he must have seen thosands and thousands of faces, and talked to almost as many people.

It never ceased to amaze me when he would spot someone coming into the bar, walked over to them and start talking about last time they were there five or ten years ago. Not only did he remember it, he also knew who they had been with the last time they were there, their names, the girls they had hit on etc. etc. He did this several times every night.

Truly amazing

I'm sure I've previously read about these sorts of people being employed by various intelligence agencies. Maybe it was just in some fiction novel, but it would make a lot of sense.

I think they were referred to as flashers. That is people who could be flashed a face, and remember if they'd seen it before. Very useful for going through mug shots to see if they had any known aliases associated with the same photo/face.

Can anyone provide any more information?

The best bartender I ever met worked at a dive called Fox's in Miami. She would remember people who had simply dropped in for a drink while on vacation the year before. Remember as in their name, drink, hometown, hotel, vacation activities, etc.

I envy people like this.

Me too. Cocktail parties are hell for me. Usually if I'm talking to someone I just memorize what shirt they're wearing. I can remember someone's face once I've seen them three or four times, but before that I have a lot of trouble with certain people. I have friends on the other hand that can recognize hundreds of people just walking down the street, people they've only met once in an elevator or something like that. It drives me crazy.

I have the same issue. Perhaps there's a market for "seeing-eye friends" who can subtly tell people about social cues, recognizable faces, etc.

Here are a couple of really interesting web pages about 'face blindness'.

http://www.choisser.com/faceblind/ http://www.prosopagnosia.com/main/stones/index.asp

Robert Reed wrote a lovely SF novella, "Do I Know You?" (published in 1993), set on a space station where everybody has a brain implant that lets them look up basic biographical information about everyone they meet (at least, every other station resident). A long-term visitor to the station is jealous of how everybody there seems to be a close personal friend of everyone else, and gets the implant for himself. Hijinks ensue.

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