Looking at other pictures of pets that are the same breed or colouring as the one you have is weird because
They look almost exactly like the animal you live with
But you can tell. You just unequivocally know…. they.. are an imposter
WAIT WAIT WAIT wAAAAit just a minute.
Are you telling me.
That my face blindness.
Extends to ANIMALS?!!
I had a longhair Chihuahua for almost 17 years, and she had the classic coloring of a fawn-colored Chi. If you were to show me a pic of several very similar longhair fawn Chi, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one was mine.
Are you telling me this isn’t how everybody is? You really can pick your dog out of a crowd of the same kind of dogs? You just KNOW?!
I’m gonna tag @hazeldomain on this one.
I don’t know why I never thought of my face blindness as extending to animals, but the thought never crossed my mind. I just assumed most people were screwed if they lost their dog in a crowd of similar dogs and all of them came running when called :
Yes. Yes it does.
It extends to the differentiation of any specific example of a face from class of things that has faces. So, yep, the perception that it is this specific face of this specific Chi is one part of your brain, and the ability to perceive that these are Chihuahuas (with faces) is another part of your brain.
The recognition of this specific Chihuahua’s faces is primarily found in the fusiform gyrus on the underside of your brain. The fact that it’s a Chihuahua’s face is mostly in other parts of the temporal lobe. Yep, it’s so complex that the brain dedicated a whole region to that one thing. Wild stuff.
Hearseeno 