Chimpanzees can quickly identify the faces of other chimps, as well as those of human adults and babies. These new findings could shed light on human and chimp evolution, scientists say.
Faces are key to human social lives, conveying key data about how one feels. As such, humans are wired to pay special attention to faces. For example, when pictures of faces are mixed in with pictures of other items such as cars and houses, people can detect the faces effortlessly.
Prior research has also shown that humans see faces differently from how they see other objects; for instance, facial recognition is severely hamperedwhen people are shown upside-down faces, or when an image of a face is modified so that the nose and mouth are located beneath the eyes. These past findings suggest that the human brainanalyzes faces in a holistic manner — that is, it understands images of faces by looking at the whole.
