It's all in the eyebrows.

[Ink Asylum]

I found this interesting study online that really surprised me. (http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p5027) Essentially, it studies how important eyebrows are when it comes to facial recognition. They present subjects with images of celebrities and other famous people with either the eyebrows or the eyes removed.

http://www.perceptionweb.com/perception/misc/p5027/p5027c_4.jpg

Their study found that, with only eyes the subjects recognized the pictures only 45% of the time, but with eyebrows present but the eyes gone that jumped to 60%. I have to say the pictures with the eyebrows intact are much more recognizable than without.

Thought it was worth sharing. I find it interesting how people recognize each other.

[TheKeck]

I'm afraid I'm going to be lambasted for this but.... I don't recognize that lady with eyes AND eyebrows. :o

[Handmade.Mercury]

Don't worry. It's Winona Ryder. She's not that recognizable to begin with.

[Ink Asylum]

Heh. It's Winona Ryder. She was more famous when the study was done in 2002.

[National Kato]

Mmmm, sexy eyeless Winona...

[Philonious]

A pretty old, but pretty cool study. I had to read this while I was working on my PhD on facial attractiveness. Good times.

And just for kicks, this is one of mine:
http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p5865

[TheKeck]

A pretty old, but pretty cool study. I had to read this while I was working on my PhD on facial attractiveness. Good times.

And just for kicks, this is one of mine:
http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p5865
No fancy pictures to give an example? :p

[Ink Asylum]

On a personal note, I am reminded of when my mother goes through chemo every couple years and loses her hair, including eyebrows. The missing eyebrows definitely are a drastic change, probably moreso than losing the hair on her head.

When I have a little time it'd be fun to experiment with some other celebrities. It's a shame the published online study didn't include all their sample images.

[Pale Ale]

Oh good, so now there is a perfectly good explanation, and here I just thought I was being a dick. ;)

[Ink Asylum]

Being a dick about what?

Personally, I've never liked when people shave off their eyebrows completely then draw them back on, and this perhaps explains why. Although you could make the argument that it's allowing that person to have greater control over their own face without resorting to plastic surgery.

[Philonious]

No fancy pictures to give an example? :p

The stimuli used in that study were pretty freaky. We did have some pretty attractive young women pose as stimuli though. It was kind of funny that when choosing faces to base my stimuli on I was typically pretty biased and usually chose the most attractive ones to work on (I had to spend several hours photoshopping each face, so I might as well enjoy what I was looking at).

There's a fair bit of research devoted to the finding that the area of your face where your eyebrows and eyes come together is a rich source of information about facial identity. Still the eyebrows being more important than the eyes was a surprising finding to most people.

[OldeWolf]

The stimuli used in that study were pretty freaky. We did have some pretty attractive young women pose as stimuli though. It was kind of funny that when choosing faces to base my stimuli on I was typically pretty biased and usually chose the most attractive ones to work on (I had to spend several hours photoshopping each face, so I might as well enjoy what I was looking at).

There's a fair bit of research devoted to the finding that the area of your face where your eyebrows and eyes come together is a rich source of information about facial identity. Still the eyebrows being more important than the eyes was a surprising finding to most people.

Did you by any chance broaden that study to including Deaf people and their interactions with facial expressions with and without eyebrows? Us deafies rely on eyebrow heavily for facial expressions among other things. So should an interesting study if you by luck came across this tidbit.

[Philonious]

Did you by any chance broaden that study to including Deaf people and their interactions with facial expressions with and without eyebrows? Us deafies rely on eyebrow heavily for facial expressions among other things. So should an interesting study if you by luck came across this tidbit.

Sadly the eyebrow stuff isn't mine, I just looked at beauty. But you're right, that could be pretty cool.

[Smoof]

So when people black bar out eyes, they really ought to be doing eyebrows instead?

[Vandabo]

I had a friend in high school who didn't have any eyebrows... I think he might have been burned when he was young or something, but in any case it was pretty strange looking. He usually wore glasses though, which kind of made up for it.

My eyebrows are very thick and bushy, and the left one has a cowlick in it, so it is permanently arched up like Spock. I had relatives that would call me that as a kid.

[Mike Kelehan]

I loved Silent Hill 3. There was a character that didn't have any eyebrows, just so she'd seem a little off, and you could never get a good read on her. That game may have my favorite cinematics of any game.