Security News > 2020 > March > Huge flaw found in how facial features are measured from images
How is it that our brains - the original face recognition program - can recognize somebody we know, even when they're far away? As in, how do we recognize those we know in spite of their faces appearing to flatten out the further they are from us?
Even as our friends' faces get optically distorted by being closer or further away, our brains employ a mechanism called perceptual constancy that optically "Corrects" face shape At least, it does when we're already familiar with how far apart our friends' features are.
People are very good at recognizing the faces of their friends and family - people who they know well - across different images.
The researchers found that changing the distance between a camera and a subject - from 0.32m to 2.70m - impaired perceptual matching of unfamiliar faces, even though the images were presented at the same size.
Accurate face identification is crucial in many police investigations and border security scenarios.