QUIZ: Are you a super-recognizer?
The best super-recognizers can remember almost every face they’ve ever seen
Every day, humans use a superpower and we don't even realize it.
Our ability to recognize and remember faces is incredible.The average person can remember around 5,000 faces — including scores of celebrities we've never even met. The reasons why we have this skill (and why some of us don't) are explored in In Your Face, a documentary from The Nature of Things.
There are some people whose facial recognition abilities go even further. People like Kelly Desborough can remember the face of everyone she's ever met, no matter how long ago she met them, or how well she knew them.
In London, U.K., Desborough was recruited to a special squad of "super-recognizers" to assist the police.
"I was given a face of a known predator that we were trying to find," says Desborough in the documentary. "And I found him, in amongst 42,000 people."
WATCH: "Super-recognizers" can pick out one person's face amongst thousands
Are you a super-recognizer?
Do you think you're pretty good at recognizing faces? The best super-recognizers are able to identify any face they've seen before, no matter how altered or covered up it might be.
Try taking the "balaclava test" in the video above. You'll have a few seconds to identify each celebrity behind the masks.
Watch In Your Face on The Nature of Things
