'Barcodes' that help us tell Clooney from rest of crowd

Published on Friday 3 April 2009 21:31

FACES contain "barcodes" of information which help us to recognise each other, researchers revealed yesterday.

By manipulating images of celebrity faces such as actor George Clooney, the researchers found nearly all of the information that we need to recognise faces is contained in horizontal lines, such as those of the eyebrows, eyes and lips.

Analysis by Dr Steven Dakin at University College London and Professor Roger Watt from the University of Stirling showed these features could be simplified into black and white lines of information – like barcodes.

The study, published in the Journal of Vision, may have implications for improving face recognition software.

The researchers said that recognising a person's face was complex, but the first steps to processing visual information in the brain were thought to be basic and rely on the orientation of features such as lines.

Dr Dakin said: "Exposed skin on our forehead and cheeks tends to be shiny while our eyebrows and lips and the shadows cast in the eye sockets and under the nose tend to be darker.

"The resulting horizontal stripes of information are reminiscent of a barcode."

Barcodes were developed as an efficient way of providing information simply.

In a similar way, our faces may have evolved to allow us to effectively convey the information needed to recognise them.

Dr Dakin believes the research may have implications for improving face recognition software, for example for use at an airport where police may need to locate a suspect in a crowd on CCTV cameras.

"If we are looking for barcode-like images to tell us that 'this is a face', then software could be developed to mimic this skill."

The research may also help explain our ability to see faces where they do not exist, for example in clouds or in flames.