6 ms·

Other primates had been tested, but they had been tested on human faces -- based on the assumption that ours are the easiest to tell apart. ::face-palm::

enjo 14y ago
Although there are interesting results there. There have been a few studies now done with dogs and their ability to not only recognize human faces, but to decipher emotions from them. It's fascinating insight into how domesticated dogs complement humans in really amazing ways.
nessus42 14y ago
Yes, if that's really true one has to wonder about the common sense of the scientists who did that research!
- Houshalter 14y ago
  Well if it turned out that they could tell apart human faces that would be an interesting result. But it certainly doesn't prove that they can't distinguish members of their own species, if that is what the researchers were claiming.
darkxanthos 14y ago
Wow. I remember a time when I thought scientists were infallible, almost magical in their reasoning abilities. Then I read stuff like this and remember "Nope. Still only human." ;)
- coldtea 14y ago
  >I remember a time when I thought scientists were infallible, almost magical in their reasoning abilities. Then I read stuff like this and remember "Nope. Still only human." Why would you think that? Scientists are just humans that follow a methodology of inquiry (and keep tabs). Nothing more. Sure, some scientists are super-smart (e.g Feynman) but that's because they happen to be geniuses, not because they are scientists. They can also be stupider than the guy flipping burgers at McDonalds, not only in generic fields (he might be better at music than them), but also in general thinking. Even having a PhD doesn't mean much. I've seen people I know getting those that are dumb as hell (being meticulous and methodological seems more of a predictor of getting one). And of course the classic: sex, money, ideology, power, personal psychological complexes etc can make a scientist think BS just like any other guy.
  - darkxanthos 14y ago
    Because I don't always think rationally. :)
derleth 14y ago
So... if they think we all look alike, does that make them racist? ;)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
philwelch 14y ago
I wonder if anyone has quantitatively measured the variation in human faces and how that differs from faces of other animals.
- frabcus 14y ago
  How could you? Any process and algorithm you picked for that measurement would be a prejudiced choice. For example, if you used a human digital camera as your input, you'd be biasing based on frequencies human vision can see. If your algorithm did some kind of hamming distance of pixels, it might be that one species cared more about that, whereas another cared more about a distance metric between fields of detected line boundaries. Who knows! Any such attempt to quantitively measure variation in faces would also ignoring other senses, and other ways to establish identity than the face - just the choice of considering faces as an important discriminator feels anthropocentric to me. In short, there is no definitive quantitative measure of "variance". That measure depends on both the senses and the brain of the observer - whether mechanical or biological.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Well you could physically measure the distance between the eyes, the curvature of the eye orbit, the width of the lips, curvature of the eye openings, length of nose, maybe a hundred such measurements, see how much each measurement varies between humans and then do the same test on raccoons. Wouldn't it be interesting if raccoons had similar variance in facial features but we just didn't know how to recognize them? Of course facial recognition isn't the only way animals have of recognizing identity, but it's still an interesting question whether humans really have more distinct faces than other animals or whether we just think we do because we're really good at recognizing human faces.

enjo 14y ago

Although there are interesting results there. There have been a few studies now done with dogs and their ability to not only recognize human faces, but to decipher emotions from them. It's fascinating insight into how domesticated dogs complement humans in really amazing ways.

nessus42 14y ago

Yes, if that's really true one has to wonder about the common sense of the scientists who did that research!

Houshalter 14y ago
Well if it turned out that they could tell apart human faces that would be an interesting result. But it certainly doesn't prove that they can't distinguish members of their own species, if that is what the researchers were claiming.

darkxanthos 14y ago

Wow. I remember a time when I thought scientists were infallible, almost magical in their reasoning abilities. Then I read stuff like this and remember "Nope. Still only human." ;)

coldtea 14y ago
>I remember a time when I thought scientists were infallible, almost magical in their reasoning abilities. Then I read stuff like this and remember "Nope. Still only human." Why would you think that? Scientists are just humans that follow a methodology of inquiry (and keep tabs). Nothing more. Sure, some scientists are super-smart (e.g Feynman) but that's because they happen to be geniuses, not because they are scientists. They can also be stupider than the guy flipping burgers at McDonalds, not only in generic fields (he might be better at music than them), but also in general thinking. Even having a PhD doesn't mean much. I've seen people I know getting those that are dumb as hell (being meticulous and methodological seems more of a predictor of getting one). And of course the classic: sex, money, ideology, power, personal psychological complexes etc can make a scientist think BS just like any other guy.
- darkxanthos 14y ago
  Because I don't always think rationally. :)

derleth 14y ago

So... if they think we all look alike, does that make them racist? ;)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

philwelch 14y ago

I wonder if anyone has quantitatively measured the variation in human faces and how that differs from faces of other animals.

frabcus 14y ago
How could you? Any process and algorithm you picked for that measurement would be a prejudiced choice. For example, if you used a human digital camera as your input, you'd be biasing based on frequencies human vision can see. If your algorithm did some kind of hamming distance of pixels, it might be that one species cared more about that, whereas another cared more about a distance metric between fields of detected line boundaries. Who knows! Any such attempt to quantitively measure variation in faces would also ignoring other senses, and other ways to establish identity than the face - just the choice of considering faces as an important discriminator feels anthropocentric to me. In short, there is no definitive quantitative measure of "variance". That measure depends on both the senses and the brain of the observer - whether mechanical or biological.
- philwelch 14y ago
  Well you could physically measure the distance between the eyes, the curvature of the eye orbit, the width of the lips, curvature of the eye openings, length of nose, maybe a hundred such measurements, see how much each measurement varies between humans and then do the same test on raccoons. Wouldn't it be interesting if raccoons had similar variance in facial features but we just didn't know how to recognize them? Of course facial recognition isn't the only way animals have of recognizing identity, but it's still an interesting question whether humans really have more distinct faces than other animals or whether we just think we do because we're really good at recognizing human faces.