Here is a drawing that I created. It is obvious that there are certain features on this drawing that cause it to seem like it is female, but there are also features that cause it to be viewed as a male.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Facial Recognition by Drawing Faces
Facial recognition is a powerful unconscious capability. Distinguishing between faces for those with vision, or distinguishing between voices for those who are blind allow humans to effectively communicate. How do we distinguish faces? Is distinguishing a face like decoding a written set of symbols that our brains learn to do at a young age?
I took a novel approach to understanding facial recognition. Two years ago I took a drawing class, and I used to think drawing an object was an innate talent that only certain people have. Just like anything else, it took a large amount of practice and time to figure out a viable method that produced an accurate picture.
But, in order to accurately draw an object, especially a face, takes understanding the intricacies about the face. These intricacies are easily calculate by our brains because our ability to distinguish intrafacial features as well as interfacial features. I only noticed certain facial features when attempting to re-create them in a two dimensional medium.
I noticed that proportion play a significant role in the accuracy of a face. Placing the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, eyebrows, and hair in the correct places relative to the jawbone, forehead, and chin caused the face to not appear distorted. The size of these facial features must also be in accordance to one another when attempting to recreate a face.
After relative proportion of size and placement of facial pieces, I noticed a pattern in shading. There was always light shading on the forehead, cheeks, lips, and chin. Accurately shading dark spots around the eyes, mouth, and nose also played a significant role in accurately depicting the face.
A drawing can never look exactly like a real face because there are thousands of various shade spots, proportion nuances, features that are derived from various expressions on that the human face conveys. But, with consistent shading in a given set of areas (forehead, mouth, nose, chin, and jaw), a sufficient depiction of the face can be drawn. Our brains have the capability of understanding the shade spots, and proportions of facial structures, and can then make conclusions based on them. What makes facial recognition powerful is our capability of distinguishing the nuances of different people's faces.
I noticed that every face is consistent with the way it looks in any sort of angle. Our brains understand that consistency, and remember the consistency of shading and proportion. This is proof that our brain remembers the detailed proportion, and three dimensional intricacies among the thousands of faces we encounter on a daily basis. But, through practice of experiencing a face, we remember the formula behind each face.
It is an amazing task that our brains accomplish on a daily basis.
I took a novel approach to understanding facial recognition. Two years ago I took a drawing class, and I used to think drawing an object was an innate talent that only certain people have. Just like anything else, it took a large amount of practice and time to figure out a viable method that produced an accurate picture.
But, in order to accurately draw an object, especially a face, takes understanding the intricacies about the face. These intricacies are easily calculate by our brains because our ability to distinguish intrafacial features as well as interfacial features. I only noticed certain facial features when attempting to re-create them in a two dimensional medium.
I noticed that proportion play a significant role in the accuracy of a face. Placing the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, eyebrows, and hair in the correct places relative to the jawbone, forehead, and chin caused the face to not appear distorted. The size of these facial features must also be in accordance to one another when attempting to recreate a face.
After relative proportion of size and placement of facial pieces, I noticed a pattern in shading. There was always light shading on the forehead, cheeks, lips, and chin. Accurately shading dark spots around the eyes, mouth, and nose also played a significant role in accurately depicting the face.
A drawing can never look exactly like a real face because there are thousands of various shade spots, proportion nuances, features that are derived from various expressions on that the human face conveys. But, with consistent shading in a given set of areas (forehead, mouth, nose, chin, and jaw), a sufficient depiction of the face can be drawn. Our brains have the capability of understanding the shade spots, and proportions of facial structures, and can then make conclusions based on them. What makes facial recognition powerful is our capability of distinguishing the nuances of different people's faces.
I noticed that every face is consistent with the way it looks in any sort of angle. Our brains understand that consistency, and remember the consistency of shading and proportion. This is proof that our brain remembers the detailed proportion, and three dimensional intricacies among the thousands of faces we encounter on a daily basis. But, through practice of experiencing a face, we remember the formula behind each face.
It is an amazing task that our brains accomplish on a daily basis.
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