Why is it so common that bigoted people all too often expose their cognitive flaws?
https://twitter.com/BostonDotCom/status/1493683770830069769
I'm also Asian, but I confess that the lack of exposure to faces of different races does affect your recognition abilities. One would think that it's only Asian faces, but it's any face of an unfamiliar kind. Recognizing faces is an intuition that requires practice.
Yesterday, my wife was spotted by a co-worker in a crowded shopping area. This was despite wearing a facemask and a heavy jacket. People can recognize other people with the smallest of cues.
The other day, I was recognized by an entire family picking up food in a restaurant. I was wearing a beany, a facemask and a heavy jacket. Humans are tuned to recognize who they know. They can't recognize who they don't know.
Human recognition requires high fidelity. I doubt you will recognize a person in the street if you just saw him on a Zoom call. There is sufficient distortion and environmental noise in Zoom calls to affect one's recognition capabilities.
Human recognition is also contextual. How often are you stumped when you see someone you are sure you know but cannot place because he's someone you know only from work?
Humans will have to settle with their own limitations that knowing involves experiencing. Having said this, there are humans who have photographic memories. But people with this capability feel that it is not just a superpower but also an affliction. time.com/5045521/highly…
Humans remember events in the context they were in. What has meaning for us is what we remember. If we remember too much, then how does this influence what is meaningful to us?
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
