Is the recognition of faces learned or innate?
Face recognition is innate, but requires training. In one study, subjects were taught to recognize fantasy forms. After training, their performance matched that of their performance in face recognition. Forms and objects, therefore faces, that we encounter regularly, and those that are important to us, are easy to memorize. For Western people it is often hard to distinguish the differences in Asian faces. After staying in Asia, a person’s ability recognition improves greatly because they learn to look at facial details.
