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Updated April 5, 2024
Linking a person’s name with a striking facial feature — like a piercing eye color or sharp jawline — will help to aid your memory.
Think you’re bad at remembering names? You might be worse at remembering faces. When 24 young adults were asked if they recognized images of faces or written names that they had seen before — but in different photos and fonts — the participants correctly identified 83 percent of the names but only 64 percent of the faces, according to a study published in 2018 in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Faces look slightly different every time you see them, whether due to a different hairstyle or a change in lighting, while names generally remain the same. Fixating on a facial feature that stands out to you, like a large nose, thick eyebrows or pale blue eyes, may help you recall your new acquaintance’s face (and name) next time you see them.
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