How Do We Recognise Faces? – At home science – ExpeRimental #28

June 23, 2017Artis Modus

The Royal Institution

Find out why we can spot faces in inanimate objects and learn what facial features are the most important for us to recognise a face.
Download the infosheet here for more instructions: http://www.rigb.org/families/experimental/multitasking-mayhem

Faces come in all shapes and sizes, and we’re incredibly good at recognising them. In this activity you will explore your ability to find faces in everyday objects.

By going out and looking for faces on inanimate objects you will learn about what combination of features is crucial in allowing us to recognise what we see as a face.

Seeing faces, or familiar objects in random patterns is part of a phenomenon known as apophenia. This has been described as our need to make sense of randomness and find patterns and meanings where there aren’t any. So a cloud that looks like a dog fits into our model of the world better than a shapeless mass of water vapour.

This series of ExpeRimental is supported by the British Psychological Society: https://beta.bps.org.uk/

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