I got 78%, which is okay, but kind of close to the 75% "normal" cutoff they gave. Like you, I remember Caucasian faces much better. When in Tanzania and Mayotte (especially Tanzania), I quite frequently either thought I recognized someone when I'd never met them, or didn't recognize that I knew somebody. It was very embarrassing. I think it's normal, though, because I grew up in environments in which the majority of people were Caucasian, so the features that make distinguishing Caucasians easier are the ones I got used to using. Was your upbringing similar in that respect?
Well, I grew up in Brazil, so really, there was quite a large variety of shapes, colours and other distinguishing features. I'm used to seeing variety. It's the homogeneous societies that are challenging, and really, I feel like it's a reasonable "condition" ie to be able to more easily distinguish between larger differences than smaller ones... which doesn't answer your question. I guess no, I didn't really grow up among mostly Caucasians, but I wonder if Caucasians may not have a greater variety of appearances than other races (eg. Mediterranean, N European, Latino/white, can differ widely in just eye colour and hair colour etc). Or perhaps it's more that the Asians and Africans/blacks that we do see (eg in the States) represent a narrower subset of the whole than for Caucasians..
The thing is, normally I rely on other cues rather than facial differences (of course I was really trying hard during this exercise :-)--I usually go by hair, then face, then general body height and girth.
Comments 2
Reply
The thing is, normally I rely on other cues rather than facial differences (of course I was really trying hard during this exercise :-)--I usually go by hair, then face, then general body height and girth.
Reply
Leave a comment