about faces...

its again been long since i wrote.

The past month has been full of ideas... in fact i found myself composing so many posts in my idle time... but since i wasn't near a comp most of the time... the post might never come here!

anyway. i visited Frank Lloyd Wright's house in Chicago this Sunday. It was a beautiful neighbourhood, an interesting house, and some some lovely little insights into his life. something completely off track got me thinking though!

On one of the walls was framed Frank Lloyd Wright's passport. I t was nothing like the passports today. It was one plain sheet, with NO picture, and just a physical description. It went some thing like ( the picture on top is of another such 'passport'):

Name: Frank Lloyd Wright

Age: *whatever*

Height: 5'8"

Forehead: receding

Nose: large

Chin: average

Color: brown

and somehow i was just intrigued!! i was intrigued because i found it Hillarious that a person be described that way, and yet, when i really got down to thinking about it... if there were an image there of his face, my mind would subconsciously note those attributes... after all there must be some unsaid way in which we recognise faces, but to see it written in 'black and white' terms was strange.

Ok, - here's Strange twist to this train of thought.... i met someone the other day that discussed a peculiar ailment with me : Prosopagnosia
Prosopagnosia is also known as 'Face Blindness'. Here people are unable to tell faces apart ( like some people can not tell different brands of cars/sedans apart... or tell fonts apart). People with this disorder cannot make any sense of faces and can't make same-different judgements when they are presented with pictures of different faces. They may also might not be able to tell differences such as age or gender from a face. However, they may be able to recognise people using non-face clues such as their clothing, hairstyle or voice!!

So what this person explained to me was that face recognition is a kind of 'developed expertise'. As in the in actuality face recognition is a complex process as it involves analysing complex surfaces, and sometimes very subtle differences.... Thus most of us over the years develop expertise in this... so slowly we all become 'face experts' which is why sometimes we can recognise a person, and still not remember his/her name!

So all this began with surprise at an image being broken down into just a few words- basically objectivity in a complex subjective subject... and then came through to the fact that it probably That crude break down of attributes which is what actually happens in our head without us sometimes even realising it!!

ok... i promise the next post will not be this crazy!