Why is placing a black bar only over someone’s eyes considered adequate enough to not be able to identify them?
In: 9149
The human brain has a whole section dedicated specifically to recognizing face-shaped things. This is why we experience [pareidolia,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia) which is why we see smiley faces as faces despite the fact they are literally 2 dots, an arc, and a circle.
But that part of our brain has some pretty serious limitations. It has to, because picking out faces consistently is such a complicated task we can’t get massive supercomputer clusters to do it reliably yet. One of those limitations is that if the eyes are totally obscured, our recognition of the face becomes significantly weaker. We may pass over it entirely if we aren’t looking for it, and if we do spot it we won’t remember it because it doesn’t look like a face is supposed to. So by obscuring the eyes on a photo, you’re messing with the part of your brain which does facial recognition, basically making it impossible to remember the details accurately.
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