Monkey And Man - The Thatcher Illusion And Facial Recognition
We meet many of the same people every day but without the ability to recognize faces at first glance, our lives would be a confusing mess. Imagine asking your boss for coffee or a waitress to place a phone call. Monkeys also possess the ability to distinguish between faces of group members and to extract the relevant information about the individual directly from the face. With the help of the so-called 'Thatcher illusion', scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, have examined how people and macaque monkeys recognize faces and process the information in the brain. They found out that both species perceive the faces of their kin immediately, while the faces of the other species are processed in a different way. read more