Pixel Challenge

Humans are champs at facial recognition. MIT's Dr. Pawan Sinha found that 75% of his test subjects could recognize faces with only 12x14 pixels' worth of information. Sinha told the New York Times that our holistic approach is the key: "[s]omething about the overall organization of the image, the gestalt, is still allowing us to recognize the face." See how well you fare on these severely-reduced images. If you get stuck, try standing back a ... more 

Humans are champs at facial recognition. MIT's Dr. Pawan Sinha found that 75% of his test subjects could recognize faces with only 12x14 pixels' worth of information. Sinha told the New York Times that our holistic approach is the key: "[s]omething about the overall organization of the image, the gestalt, is still allowing us to recognize the face." See how well you fare on these severely-reduced images. If you get stuck, try standing back a few feet from your monitor. (We also threw in a few non-face images to mix things up.) less