你能记住多少人的脸？

For the first time, scientists have been able to put a figure on how many faces people actually know– a staggering 5,000 on average.

科学家们第一次确定了人类可以记住的面孔数量——平均达到惊人的5000张脸。

 

Until now, there has been no method for estimating the number of faces people know. Image credit: Dr Rob Jenkins, University of York.

到目前为止，还没有方法可以估算出人们所知道的面孔数量。图片来源：约克大学Rob Jenkins博士

The research team, from the University of York, tested study participants on how many faces they could recall from their personal lives and the media, as well as the number of famous faces they recognised.

来自约克大学的研究小组对志愿者进行了测试，看看他们可以从个人生活和媒体中回忆出多少张面孔，以及他们认出的知名人物的数量。

Humans have typically lived in small groups of around one hundred individuals, but the study suggests our facial recognition abilities equip us to deal with the thousands of faces we encounter in the modern world – on our screens as well as in social interactions.

人类通常生活在约100人构成的小团体中，但该研究表明，我们的面部识别能力使我们能够记住在现代世界中看过的成千上万的脸，无论是在我们的屏幕上还是在社交互动中。

Facial vocabulary

面部词汇量

The results provide a baseline with which to compare the “facial vocabulary” size of humans with facial recognition software that is increasingly used to identify people at airports and in police investigations.

这一结果为以后的研究提供了一个基线，可以比较人类的“面部词汇量”的大小与面部识别软件的能力，而后者正越来越多地被用于机场安全预警和警方调查。

Dr Rob Jenkins, from the Department of Psychology at the University of York, said: “Our study focused on the number of faces people actually know– we haven’t yet found a limit on how many faces the brain can handle.

约克大学心理学系的Rob Jenkins博士说：“我们研究的主要关注点是，人们实际掌握的面孔数量——我们还没有发现大脑在此方面的极限。“

“The ability to distinguish different individuals is clearly important—it allows you to keep track of people’s behaviour over time, and to modify your own behaviour accordingly.”

”区分不同个体的能力显然非常重要——它可以让您随着时间的推移去跟踪人们的行为，并相应地修正自己的行为。”

Famous faces

著名的面孔

For the study, participants spent an hour writing down as many faces from their personal lives as possible – including people they went to school with, colleagues and family. They then did the same for famous faces, such as actors, politicians, and other public figures.

在研究中，参与者花了一个小时写下尽可能多的人名——出现在自己的生活之中，且记下了长相的人——包括同学、同事和家人。然后，他们再写下自己记得长相的公共人物，比如演员、政治家和其他公众人物。

The participants found it easy to come up with lots of faces at first, but harder to think of new ones by the end of the hour. That change of pace allowed the researchers to estimate when they would run out of faces completely.

参与者发现，一开始很容易就唤起大量的面孔，但在随着时间推移，越来越难想到新面孔。这种节奏的变化使研究人员能够估计出他们什么时候会完全耗尽自己的面部词汇量。

The participants were also shown thousands of photographs of famous people and asked which ones they recognised. The researchers required participants to recognise two different photos of each person to ensure consistency.

研究人员还向参与者展示了成千上万的著名人物的照片，并询问他们认出了哪些人。研究人员要求参与者至少识别出同一人物的两张不同照片以确保一致性。

Natural aptitude?

天生的能力?

The results showed that the participants knew between 1,000 and 10,000 faces.

结果显示参与者记忆中有1000到10000张面孔。

Dr Jenkins added: “The range could be explained by some people having a natural aptitude for remembering faces. There are differences in how much attention people pay to faces, and how efficiently they process the information.

Jenkins博士补充说：“变动的范围可以解释为一些人有记忆人脸的天赋。人们对脸部的关注度以及他们处理信息的效率有所不同。

“Alternatively, it could reflect different social environments–some participants may have grown up in more densely populated places with more social input.”

“或者，它可以反映不同的社会环境——一些参与者可能在人口稠密的地方长大，人际接触更多。”

The mean age of the studies participants was 24 and, according to the researchers, age provides an intriguing avenue for further research.

参与者的平均年龄为24岁，据研究人员称，针对其他年龄段的测试，是后续研究的一个有趣的未来方向。

“It would be interesting to see whether there is a peak age for the number of faces we know”, said Dr Jenkins. “Perhaps we accumulate faces throughout our lifetimes, or perhaps we start to forget some after we reach a certain age.”

Jenkins博士说：“看看我们所能知道的面孔数量是否已经达到峰值将会很有趣。也许我们在一生中始终记得那些面容，或者在达到某个年龄后，我们可能会开始忘记一些面孔。”