WIKIMEDIA, MWREGRZYNWe get better at recognizing faces as we get older—at least until about age 30. A new study, published January 5 in Science, suggests that this may be partially due to the fact that facial recognition areas in the brain continue to grow throughout childhood.
Kalanit Grill-Spector, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, and her colleagues compared MRI scans from 22 children between the ages of 5 and 12, and 25 adults between the ages of 22 and 28, and found that the fusiform gyrus, a brain region involved in processing faces, grew by 12.6 percent from childhood to adulthood.
“It’s quite surprising that this part of the brain continues to develop and change after infancy and into adulthood, especially when just 2 centimeters away, in the place-recognizing region, this doesn’t occur.” Grill-Spector told Science Magazine.
Using a computer-based face perception test, Grill-Spector and her team also found that if a participant had a bigger fusiform gyrus, he or she also typically had better facial memory. According to the researchers, further ...
