Facial recognition is a tricky thing. One minute you’re sure you're looking at your best friend from elementary school, and the next thing you know, you’re involved in a classic case of mistaken identity. According to a study to be published in Psychological Science, not everyone is good at recognizing faces. Those who are, however, seem to have a common denominator: they all look at faces holistically.

What does that mean exactly?

The study suggests that there are essentially two ways by which people look at life on a daily basis. One is holistically, where people see a face in its entirety, while the other is analytically, where only specific points are locked in memory. The latter is normally used for objects such as cars, houses, and animals, but according to Beijing Normal University cognitive psychologist Jia Liu, the former is especially important in face recognition.

To test the idea, the researchers observed 337 subjects--a mix of males and females--and their ability to recognize faces. They were then presented photographs of faces with two horizontal halves and were also asked to identify specific parts of faces.

Upon analysis of results, it was discovered that the participants had an easier time recognizing faces when the top-half of the face was misaligned and when the individual parts of the faces were shown together with the original face rather than on their own. Those who scored high on both tests also performed well in the original experiment, which tested their ability to recognize faces in general.

According to Liu, the study might help people suffering from face blindness as well as those who want to improve their ability to recognize faces. By teaching them to look at people holistically rather than to identify them through different parts, they’ll unlikely have to deal with another embarrassing episode of mistaken identity again.

(Photo by inkshots via Flickr Creative Commons)