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Remembering Faces Forever? Are you good at remembering faces? How about the face of a stranger you passed in the supermarket aisle three months ago? Or the face of a waitress who served you dinner last year? That may seem unlikely, but some people are what's known as “super recognizers.”
永遠記住面孔？你很擅長記住面孔？那你還記得三個月前在超市走道上碰見的陌生人的長相嗎？或者是去年為你點過晚餐的服務員的長相？也許顯得很不靠譜，但的確有人是所謂的“超級識別者”。
They can instantly recognize faces they glimpsed months and even years ago. This is interesting because it suggests that face recognition exists on a broad spectrum. Previously, scientists thought that people fall into two basic categories. Most people have more or less the same, average ability for recalling faces.
他們能夠立刻辨認出幾個月甚至幾年前瞥過一眼的面孔。這個現象很有趣，因為這表明面部識別的范疇是廣泛的。很明顯，科學家們認為人可分為兩類。大多數人在記憶面孔的能力方面大抵相同。
But around two percent of people can hardly recognize faces at all—a condition called prosopagnosia. The discovery that a small percentage of people are super recognizers means the overall spectrum of face recognition is more expansive than we knew. While relatively few people fall into either extreme, most of us exist somewhere in between.
但是有2%的人根本辨認不出臉孔——這種情況叫做面容失認癥。同時還發現一小部分人是超級面部辨認者，這意味著辨認面孔的整體頻譜比我們知道的更為廣泛。然而，相對來說屬于這兩種范疇的人很少，大多數人都是介于這兩者之間。
But that doesn't mean that most people are equally competent at recognizing faces. Without being a super recognizer, Joe may exist somewhere in the neighborhood of strong facial recall. Whereas Jane's talent for remembering faces might lie closer to the prosopagnosia end of things.
但是，那并不意味著大多數人在辨認面孔的能力方面是一樣的。喬不是一個超級面孔識別者，當他出現在一個辨認面孔整體水平很強的社區時，就顯得像得了人面失認癥。
For the most part, where you fall on the face recognition spectrum may not matter. But if, say, you're an eyewitness in a murder trial, then your relative ability for recalling faces might become a pivotal fact in the trial.
就絕大部分而言，你屬于哪個范圍并不要緊。然而，萬一你是一樁犯罪案件的目擊者，那么你識別面孔的能力就是審判的關鍵所在了。
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