super recognizers

The ability to recognize faces is inherited

neurophilosophy | March 3, 2010

THE perception and recognition of faces is crucial for the social situations we encounter every day. From the moment we are born, we prefer looking at faces than at inanimate objects, because the brain is geared to perceive them, and has specialized mechanisms for doing so. Such is the importance of the face to everyday life, that we see faces everywhere, even when they are not there. We know that the ability to recognize faces varies among individuals. Some people are born with prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces, and others acquire the condition as a result of brain damage. At…