I remember being told there was a specific part of the brain dedicated to recognizing faces. It’s one of the reasons people have trouble learning to draw faces, where they could draw a perfectly reasonable apple or something. Partially because that part of the brain prevents us from seeing what is there, because it’s busy recognizing. But also because we notice differences from the original more.

An drawing of an apple still looks like a good apple, even if there are some imperfections in the drawing. But mess up a face ever so slightly, and the face is hardly recognizable.

I’ve always assumed that that part of my brain wasn’t quite up to snuff, as it takes me several different meetings to recognize someone properly. If they change their hairstyle ever so slightly, I’m thrown off until I’ve known them a while. There was a girl at the theater who I met 5 times but never recognized her, because she always changed her hairstyle and wore a different level of makeup. Embarrassing.