It’s known that some people are naturally better at recognising familiar faces than others,[1] in fact a very small number of people seem to be exceptionally good at this and can spot familiar faces very easily in crowds, earning the nickname ‘super-recognisers’.
Being able to recognise faces is a valuable skill, in part because it allows us to be social and form bonds with others.
It can mean that we are better able to read our friends’ or families’ expressions to help ensure we behave in the correct way for a given situation – something toddlers and young children are of course still learning to do.
People who are classed as super-recognisers often don’t realise this is the case, but they can use their talent at remembering faces in lots of ways.
Some super recognisers support the police to identify criminals or locate missing people, and they might choose to go into jobs which involve needing to recall lots of people accurately. You can find out more and even do a simple test to see if you could be a super-recogniser on this webpage created by the research team based at the University of Greenwich, in London.
Other people naturally struggle with it and find it hard to recognise even familiar faces right away, or in a new situation.
This is nothing to worry about, so don’t feel you need to create facial training schemes for you or your child. It simply explains why some people take a little longer to put a face to a name.
It’s unlikely you can ‘teach’ this skill, but it might be linked to other senses.
A study which used a matching game to evaluate memory has suggested that visual short-term memory skills are linked to face recognition ability.[2]
Although there is no clear research to show that familiar face recognition can be improved, playing lots of simple matching games or odd-one-out spotting games with your child might help them improve their visual short-term memory, and if nothing else, it’ll be a lot of fun.
References:
[1] Lander, K., Bruce, V., and Bindemann, M. (2018). ‘Use-inspired basic research on individual differences in face identification: implications for criminal investigation and security’. Cogn Res Princ Implic. 3:26. doi: 10.1186/s41235-018-0115-6
[2] Megreya, A. M., and Burton, A. M. (2006). ‘Unfamiliar faces are not faces: evidence from a matching task’. Mem Cogn. 34:865–76. doi: 10.3758/bf03193433