The search for 'super recognisers' in Hong Kong: people who never forget a face
Are you a 'super-recogniser'? Do you never forget a face? Read about the research into the unique phenomenon and take the test to see if you have this extraordinary skill
A leading British researcher wants to know if Hong Kong is home to an elite group of people known as "super recognisers", who have the natural ability to recall almost every face they have ever seen.
Just one per cent of the population can lay claim to the extraordinary skill of remembering a face they may have seen years ago, said Josh Davis, from the psychology department at the University of Greenwich.
Davis and his team of researchers have already tested more than one million people in Britain to identify potential "super recognisers". And today, Hongkongers can find out if they have what it takes to become one by completing a five-minute online test set up specially for the
It is the first time that Davis has expanded his research to Asia. He will compare the results with those he has already obtained from British respondents.
"We believe no one living in Hong Kong or China has taken the test before," Davis said. "Of course, a few living in the UK may have taken them, but these will be a tiny minority."
The term "super recognisers" was first coined in 2009 and refers to people who can remember up to 95 per cent of all the people they have ever laid eyes on, compared to a measly 20 per cent for the less gifted.
They can pick them out in a crowd or identify them from a grainy image, even if it is many years later.
TAKE THE TEST: Are you a super-recogniser? Take the test designed specifically for readers of the Sunday Morning Post.
Davis said it was particularly useful in police work, as well as passport and border control.
"Computers are more accurate than humans with high-quality close-up images," he said. "But humans beat machines with lower quality footage common in police investigations."
The Metropolitan Police Service in London currently has a team of more than 150 "super recognisers".
"They are highly skilled officers who can recall the faces, names, birth dates and other details of offenders years after seeing them either in person or on file," a Met spokesman said.
He refused to say whether Hong Kong police had approached them about the idea or if these officers had helped identify protesters arrested during the visit of President Xi Jinping to London last week.
But Davis, who is working with the Met on devising a test to identify people with the required skills, confirmed that interest from overseas was growing.
"Other worldwide forces have spoken to the Met police," Davis said, with the novel method attracting "informal approaches" from law enforcement agencies around the world.
"For the police, disguise is a factor and yet super recognisers can often see through these changes. They are not perfect as they are human beings and still make mistakes but the number of errors is very small compared to the exceptionally high number of accurate identifications."
