Why The Diversity Among Human Faces?

When compared to animal faces that pretty much all look the same, the massive variation among human faces is quite extraordinary.

According to a new study, evolutionary pressures for individuals to be easily recognizable pushed us toward having widely different faces, reports The Washington Post.

“Individual recognition is really important, in some ways so important that sometimes we don’t realize how we recognize individuals,” said study co-author Michael Sheehan, a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. “It’s so ingrained within us.”

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http://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/topics/5087/

What about dogs?

> When compared to animal faces that pretty much all look the same, the massive variation among human faces is quite extraordinary.

I disagree, perhaps quite strongly. Consider cat faces for example. Near me is a cat boarding place that has on its walls some thousand or so photographs of the faces of the cats that have stayed there. You’d be hard-pressed to find three that look alike. The difference between cat faces is very much more than between human faces. Nor are cats a special instance, there’s far more variation in horse faces than human faces. I strongly suspect that the same is true of chicken faces and of pigeon faces. Ditto dog faces and perhaps even cow faces, and parrot faces.

Anyone who thinks that there’s very little difference between the faces of animals of a particular species probably hasn’t spent a long time looking at faces of that species.

In some animals it tends to be their voice that distinguishes them far more easily than the voices of humans distinguish them. This is certainly true of both little penguins and seagulls.

Teleost said:

What about dogs?

I often wonder how dogs identify other dogs, given the number of breeds and each breed looking different. Although smell plays a factor, I don’t think my dog can smell another dog through a closed window as they walk past.

Also, I don’t think human faces are all that different from one another. Apart from minor things such as eye and nose shape and skin colour, we’re not all that different. Not like say, cats or dogs where some have flat faces and pushed-in noses while others have long faces and big heads with all sorts of differently shaped ears.

I’d be prepared to pay real money for an old book in the Time-Life series. The book contains a multipage spread of photographs of faces of dozens people from all around the world sorted by race, I particularly remember the Eskimo face. The book came out shortly before the words “racial discrimination” made such comparisons impossible.

I cannot remember which book in the series this was. Do you remember seeing it?

Perhaps it was “The Emergence of Man” or “Human Behavior” or “Evolution” or “The Mammals” or “Early Man”.

It should be fairly easy for you to compile such a thing for yourself these days

>I’d be prepared to pay real money for an old book in the Time-Life series

I remember those.

Yeah I remember books.

>the massive variation among human faces is quite extraordinary.

What’s extraordinary is not the degree of variation but the ability of humans to instantly recognise huge numbers of individuals on the basis of minor differences in facial configuration. In fact when people see a consistent set of differences in another population (regional or so-called racial differences), many tend to have trouble sorting out the individuals and will say things like “all Asians look the same”, “all white people look the same” etc, until they become familiar with that facial type.

Human faces get repeated as well, I am sure everyone has met doppelgangers of either themselves or people they know. They are probably not exactly alike but close enough to fool most people.

the subtleties are subtle ?

Arts said:

the subtleties are subtle ?

Yes

Cymek said:

Human faces get repeated as well, I am sure everyone has met doppelgangers of either themselves or people they know. They are probably not exactly alike but close enough to fool most people.

That can be quite subjective as well. I’ve sometimes seen faces that I think look very much like me, but when I’ve pointed them out to relatives they’ve said “Hmmm nooo, doesn’t look much like you.” And I’ve had people say I look a lot like various celebrities who don’t look any effing thing like me.

Bubblecar said:

Cymek said:

Human faces get repeated as well, I am sure everyone has met doppelgangers of either themselves or people they know. They are probably not exactly alike but close enough to fool most people.

That can be quite subjective as well. I’ve sometimes seen faces that I think look very much like me, but when I’ve pointed them out to relatives they’ve said “Hmmm nooo, doesn’t look much like you.” And I’ve had people say I look a lot like various celebrities who don’t look any effing thing like me.

that’s because you only ever see yourself in reverse… which is also why people often say ‘that photo doesn’t look like me’ when it does to everyone else.

Bubblecar said:

Cymek said:

Human faces get repeated as well, I am sure everyone has met doppelgangers of either themselves or people they know. They are probably not exactly alike but close enough to fool most people.

That can be quite subjective as well. I’ve sometimes seen faces that I think look very much like me, but when I’ve pointed them out to relatives they’ve said “Hmmm nooo, doesn’t look much like you.” And I’ve had people say I look a lot like various celebrities who don’t look any effing thing like me.

That is true

Arts said:

Bubblecar said:

Cymek said:

Human faces get repeated as well, I am sure everyone has met doppelgangers of either themselves or people they know. They are probably not exactly alike but close enough to fool most people.

That can be quite subjective as well. I’ve sometimes seen faces that I think look very much like me, but when I’ve pointed them out to relatives they’ve said “Hmmm nooo, doesn’t look much like you.” And I’ve had people say I look a lot like various celebrities who don’t look any effing thing like me.

that’s because you only ever see yourself in reverse… which is also why people often say ‘that photo doesn’t look like me’ when it does to everyone else.

Same as voice I think I sound like a young Sean Connery when others say no a drunk Pee Wee Herman

Hmm, even Clive’s noticed that she’s no Stephen Hawking.

>Clive Palmer has been overheard questioning the intelligence of outspoken Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui Lambie

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/press-gallery-roped-into-another-stoush-between-clive-palmer-and-jacqui-lambie-20140923-10koq9.html

Bubblecar said:

Hmm, even Clive’s noticed that she’s no Stephen Hawking.

>Clive Palmer has been overheard questioning the intelligence of outspoken Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui Lambie

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/press-gallery-roped-into-another-stoush-between-clive-palmer-and-jacqui-lambie-20140923-10koq9.html

Sorry, WF

Bubblecar said:

>the massive variation among human faces is quite extraordinary.

What’s extraordinary is not the degree of variation but the ability of humans to instantly recognise huge numbers of individuals on the basis of minor differences in facial configuration. In fact when people see a consistent set of differences in another population (regional or so-called racial differences), many tend to have trouble sorting out the individuals and will say things like “all Asians look the same”, “all white people look the same” etc, until they become familiar with that facial type.

True

Makes me wonder what is happening at the genetic level

And dont forget that the brain gets rewarded chemically for looking at beautiful faces