Caricature.



Why does the human brain remember faces so well?

I used to write down the names and something special about the new people I met on my phone's memo. It was one of my strange secrets. I did that because sometimes I did not trust my mind to remember their names.

It did not occur to me that I should take a picture of these people so that I can remember their faces too. Maybe it was because subconsciously I must have thought I cannot forget his neat movember moustache and side burns or wow she has really pretty eyes.



I recently enrolled for 3D animation classes and in one of our classes I got to understand a bit more on how our brains work.

Our passionate lecturer explained how our minds act like databases that store people's faces. The only difference is our minds store people's faces with their most unique features popping out kinda like a caricature.

A caricature is a picture, description, or imitation of a person or thing in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic effect.

Just like a criminal investigator uses a computer database to search for suspects faces our brains search our mental database to retrieve the face of the person we first saw say two weeks ago.

He went further to explain with the example of how hard it is to tell your mothers hands apart from a collection of pictures of people with similar finger types. This with the exception of those hands that have a birthmark or a unique scar on them.

This made a lot of sense to me. I mean think of how easy it was for you to identify your mother's face way across those school halls back then during special occasions in school.

Ever wondered what feature on her face stood out so that you were sure it was her?

The brain is truly an amazing organ and it seems like we are yet to understand it fully. All the same I am glad I learnt this and who knows now I may just try out some inspired caricature pieces.

Quick question can you identify anyone from the two caricatures above? Looking forward to seeing who you think they are :)

AA
Wendi Mutisya

11 comments:

Unknown said...

That movember moustache lol! I agree

Christine said...

Interesting! can't figure out who the two caricatures are.

Wendi Ndaki said...

Hehe yap, that one Raymond.

Wendi Ndaki said...

No worries Mum will let you know soon enough :)

Joy Ruguru said...

The first is obviously Queen Bey. The second I'm not sure, Denzel?

Wendi Ndaki said...

:) I decided to share one caricature that was a bit harder to identify than the other.
Thanks Joy you are right.
I am used to seeing Denzel without a beard so I figured this caricature of him all bearded up would be a tricky one to identify.

Unknown said...

Interesting piece Wendi!:)

Unknown said...

Keep up dear, i like what you doing

Wendi Ndaki said...

Thank you Joshua 😊

Bibs said...

Thank you dear for the wonderful information. Now I know why I identify people from far away, its because of their unique features.

Wendi Ndaki said...

I'm really glad you learnt something from this piece Bibiana. I'll work on doing more like this.

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