facial recognition

Rear view of a NSW police officer

Finding police officers with superior face recognition abilities is now backed by science.

Face in shadow where only an eye is visible

Good with faces? New research suggests that your ability might be more akin to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle than taking a photograph.

A closeup of a woman's face with data points highlighted

Our brains are wired to recognise faces holistically, but focusing on two standout features can improve performance, a new UNSW study shows.

A collage of faces

Psychologists are hoping the UNSW Face Test will help unearth more of Australia’s top performers in facial recognition, known as super-recognisers.

House with a face

Face pareidolia – the phenomenon of seeing faces in everyday objects – uses the same brain processes that we use to recognise and interpret other ‘real’ human faces.

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People with superior facial recognition abilities are being recruited for surveillance and security roles while the science behind the phenomenon is having to play catch-up.

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Same person or different person? Most people are extremely good at recognising faces of people they know well, but not so much strangers.

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The first study to test the skills of FBI agents and other law enforcers trained in facial recognition has found they perform better than the average person or even computers on this difficult task.