Recognizing Faces

Recognizing Faces

1309 Sumin Chun

(Title page)I stare at myself in the mirror, marveling at my beauty. Then, I take a selfie of the amazing moment. However, I find it weird in photo. I cry in despair. Some of you may have gone through the same experience. Have you ever wondered why faces are so different? How come people recognize us, as us? How come we recognize us, as us? I have wondered, and I have also researched about the fact. I would like to share with you today, on what I have researched. I would like to inform you on recognizing faces: how others recognize us, and how we recognize ourselves.

(//1st slide) We’ll start by looking at each other’s faces. Please look to your partner’s face, and try to remember hers or his name. Let’s see if you can recognize more people.

(//2nd slide) who is this? I see you all recognize who this is. This is our classmates: 필주 and 서연.

(3rd slide) We’ve all seen how no one person is the same. Why is this?

Initially, evolutionary pressures for individuals makes us easily recognizable, which is why our faces all look different. Our identity is written all over our face. This was released by a new study from the University of California-Berkeley. They suggest our facial diversity is the result of evolutionary pressure to make sure every human is easy for other humans to recognize. For example, animals all look the same. Lots of animals rely on smell or sound to identify each other, but humans do not.

Also, each facial feature varies independently from the others’. According to The Army Anthropometric Survey, which includes measurements of women and men, and the 1000 Genomes Project, which has mapped out the genomes of nearly 1,000 people, Faces are unpredictable. For example, People with longer arms usually have longer legs, but people with wider noses don't always have longer noses. Unpredictable facial traits gives us cognitive ability to recognize special faces and connect them to information about the individual. This is crucial: Imagine fervently waving at a stranger you thought was a friend, then retreating your wave back awkwardly, or being wrongly accused of committing a murder!

Now that we learned of how we recognize each other, let’s move on to how we recognize ourselves. (But first, let me take a selfie music) Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the prettiest of them all?

According to The Atlantic magazine, there is a difference in your face when you see it with a mirror, or when you see it with a photograph. You prefer the mirror.

Primarily, this is because the perspective is a little different. Looking in a mirror is very limited, while pictures can be taken in any angle. People stand close to mirrors, but see their whole selves. On the other hand, People push their faces closer to the camera when they take selfies.