Despite the fact that all (well, the majority of) 6,973,738,433 people on Earth have one nose, one mouth and two eyes, people are exceptionally good at recognising and distinguishing different faces. If you think about it, it is quite extraordinary - we encounter hundreds of people in our lives, and still are able to immediately identify familiar faces - whether it is an acquaintance of ours or a celebrity that we saw in an advert/film/elsewhere.
From evolutionary perspective, such ability is crucial for our social functioning. It allows for recognising and avoiding threat; for establishing friendships/romantic relationships, etc. We can extract a hell lot of information about a person just by looking at their face:
1. Identity
2. Attractiveness
3. Emotions/thoughts (through facial expressions)
4. Eye gaze - mutual attention
5. Lip reading
In this post I will discuss such topics as anatomy and neurology of face perception; facial expressions; innateness of face perception ability and deception.
From evolutionary perspective, such ability is crucial for our social functioning. It allows for recognising and avoiding threat; for establishing friendships/romantic relationships, etc. We can extract a hell lot of information about a person just by looking at their face:
1. Identity
2. Attractiveness
3. Emotions/thoughts (through facial expressions)
4. Eye gaze - mutual attention
5. Lip reading
In this post I will discuss such topics as anatomy and neurology of face perception; facial expressions; innateness of face perception ability and deception.