Hidden Brain
Do I Know You? (A Hidden Brain-Revisionist History special on facial recognition)
26 May 2025
Have you ever encountered someone who clearly knows you, but you have no idea who they are? This week, we feature a classic Hidden Brain episode about people on opposite ends of the facial recognition spectrum. Then, in the second part of the show, we bring you another perspective on facial recognition from the Revisionist History podcast. Host Malcolm Gladwell struggles with identifying faces, while producer Lucie Sullivan is exceptional at it.Hidden Brain is about to kickoff a nationwide tour! Join Shankar as he shares seven key insights from the first decade of the show. To find out if we're coming to a city near you, and purchase tickets, go to https://hiddenbrain.org/tour/
Full Episode
This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. If you're like me, you know this feeling. Maybe you're at a party or you're walking down the street, and suddenly, out of a sea of passing faces, one of them lights up, looking right at you. This person starts waving, says hello. This person is glad to see you. And you? You have no idea who you're looking at. Recognizing faces is a crucial skill.
But although your mind is amazing at identifying your boyfriend or your child in a crowd, there are important limits to this ability. Some of us, like me, are extremely bad at it. Some of us are terrific. Today, we bring you a classic Hidden Brain episode about people on opposite ends of the facial recognition spectrum.
We'll also explore how our ability to recognize faces has broad implications in our lives. And then, in the second part of today's show, we're going to bring you another look at facial recognition from the Revisionist History podcast. If you're unfamiliar with the show, Revisionist History is best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell's podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood.
The show has covered everything from what Americans get wrong about guns to how English muffins get their signature nooks and crannies. It turns out that Malcolm, like me, struggles with recognizing faces. His producer, Lucy Sullivan, on the other hand, is exceptionally good at it. And Lucy wanted to find out what's going on, or isn't going on, in our brains when we see someone we know.
Revisionist History
We'll start with someone whose job requires her to be quick with faces. She's a cop.
My name's Alison Young and I'm a police officer in the Metropolitan Police in London.
She started out several years ago working on response teams in East London. These are the cops who mostly just respond to 911 calls. Then, about three and a half years into that job, she and a bunch of her fellow officers were invited to take a series of tests at a university.
You get given like three or four different faces. And you have to memorize those faces.
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