Eli5 : why do humans look different but animals and other species look the same?
In: Earth Science
They don’t. There’s as much variation between dog faces, horse faces, elephant faces are there are between human faces. Your brain just isn’t wired to pick up those differences as strongly. Humans actually have a specific part of the brain (the fusiform gyrus) devoted to facial recognition of other humans. It’s why we see faces in everything from the clouds to stains on wallpaper. Our brains just hone in on specific shapes and tell us we’re looking at a face, even if those shapes are just two dots and a curved line 🙂 and we’re *very* good at picking out subtle differences between them. Sometimes, people sustain damage to that part of their brain and lose the ability to distinguish faces. But that doesn’t mean that familiarity doesn’t make a difference. People who work with animals are definitely better than the average person at at picking up the subtle differences of their animals’ faces. It’s just not as hardwired into us as distinguishing human faces.
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