Image’ination & Articulation
I often remember the face but don’t remember the name of the person. This morning during while walking to the bus stop I started to wonder… what is it about search that we can search by name of the person, make it more specific with their location, date of birth, social security number, mother’s maiden name, DNA finger printing (depending on the importance level), retinal scan, and so on… but not by their face and features, etc.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could logon to a search engine like Google and describe, black hair, big brown eyes, low cheek bones, average lips, scar on left cheek and left fore head? My guess is that would generate no less than a couple hundred people if not million? So how does our brain register and remember all these many people? What is more interesting is our ability to recognize people after a make over-Hair cut, Age, etc. The same applies to the blind and people with sub-par vision as they recognize acquaintances, friends and family? Are these all the things we see, hear, feel and all the other sensory perceptions.
How many attributes does it take to uniquely identify a person? The question is becoming more and more relevant in today’s day and age with break-ins into secure data at people like Choice point, Citi Group, etc.. How does our brain store the data, how many attributes does it record, an above all how is it all indexed in order to be retrieved in a flash?
