How to Make Your Boring Face More Memorable
LatestResearchers at MIT have found that the memorability of your face — just like everything else about you — can be improved via Photoshop. Hooray. They project that this discovery will one day enable us to subtly manipulate photographs of ourselves in order to appear less forgettable online (in person we will all remain bland, characterless hunks of flesh).
According to NPR, it’s been scientifically proven that certain faces just adhere to our memories more firmly. Certain associations make a face more memorable, it seems — we mentally hold onto faces that project familiarity, uniqueness, trustworthiness and kindness. In the words of Aude Olivia, one MIT researcher, “If there is someone you have never seen [before] and … this person
looks familiar — then, if this person looks kind, trustworthy and
distinct, then it will be easier to remember them.” By “familiar yet distinct,” researchers mean that you’re more likely to remember someone who looks kind of like Orlando Bloom than someone who looks nothing like Orlando Bloom, but if he has the exact same face as Orlando Bloom you will remember him as the man wearing a mask made of a Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug actor’s face.