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New research shows a similarity in facial features between those with the same names in adulthood but not in children.
Surely that can’t be true, faces evolving to match your name?!
It certainly does like some strange theory, or pseudoscience, or simply fake. But no, this is serious research that has found this.
How can the researchers be sure that a Peter evolves to look like a Peter?
To be clear we are probably talking about very small differences but nevertheless measurable.
To do this Yonat Zwebner et al. of Hebrew University used machine learning tools to compare similarities between faces. What they found is that when using adult faces the machine learning could spot patterns between faces with the same names. However, this was not the case in children therefore suggesting these similarities evolve. Similarly digitally aged faces of children also does not result in similarities.
We human beings would be hard pressed to find the similarity — but many of us also get that feeling that some people seem to match their names. Likely this is far too subtle to identify but still activates our gut feeling.
