Men are from Mars, and Women are Green

The next big breakthrough in facial recognition might be closer to home than we imagined. According to an article posted on DailyTech this week, the key lies within the neural workings of the human brain. However, what remains to be seen is how exactly the brain processes distinct facial features to determine identity. Going forward, understanding this internal facial recognition functioning could lead to a whole new wave of facial recognition technology.

Facial recognition is a topic of great debate and research, and the article presents two main schools of thought: those who believe the human brain is hardwired to recognize faces and those who think it's something we learn, and there are numerous subsets within these two camps.

Some have focused on facial tones and found men's faces to be "redder" than those of women's, which are more of a greenish hue. Others believe that the nose is the first place we look to identify a face, while another group suggests that the eyebrows play central role in recognition. Another MIT researcher believes that we process faces through a specialized part of the brain devoted to recognition called the fusiform face area, while many other scientists wholeheartedly disagree that we're born with any face recognition hardware at all. A hot topic indeed.

As science continues to catch up with innate abilities, facial recognition technology continues to adapt and improve. Who would have thought that eyebrows might be the real windows to the soul?