People’s ability to recognize faces is genetically distinct

(credit: flickr user: U.S. Army)

Recognizing and remembering faces is something most people have to do constantly, and there’s a wide range in how well we do it—for some it’s effortless, for others it’s a challenge. Some people even struggle so much that they suffer from what's termed "face blindness."

Explaining these differences requires teasing apart the various influences that could play a role in face recognition, which could include things like memory performance and visual acuity. New evidence presented in this week’s issue of PNAS suggests that genetics also plays a role—but facial recognition seems to be special, influenced by genes different from those that affect other cognitive abilities.

There’s a long-standing debate about whether people might have a special, separate cognitive apparatus dedicated to recognizing faces, perhaps driven by evolutionary adaptation. There’s some evidence to support these ideas, such as the fact that people are worse at recognizing faces when they’re upside down. However, there’s no consensus about whether the available evidence fully supports the argument for a special apparatus.

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