时差N小时 永远记住面孔?

（单词翻译）

Remembering Faces Forever? Are you good at remembering faces? How about the face of a stranger you passed in the supermarket aisle¹ 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.”

永远记住面孔？你很擅长记住面孔？那你还记得三个月前在超市走道上碰见的陌生人的长相吗？或者是去年为你点过晚餐的服务员的长相？也许显得很不靠谱，但的确有人是所谓的“超级识别者”。

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 spectrum². Previously³, scientists thought that people fall into two basic categories. Most people have more or less the same, average ability for recalling faces.

他们能够立刻辨认出几个月甚至几年前瞥过一眼的面孔。这个现象很有趣，因为这表明面部识别的范畴是广泛的。很明显，科学家们认为人可分为两类。大多数人在记忆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 relatively⁴ few people fall into either extreme, most of us exist somewhere in between.

但是有2%的人根本辨认不出脸孔——这种情况叫做面容失认症。同时还发现一小部分人是超级面部辨认者，这意味着辨认面孔的整体频谱比我们知道的更为广泛。然而，相对来说属于这两种范畴的人很少，大多数人都是介于这两者之间。

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，那并不意味着大多数人在辨认面孔的能力方面是一样的。乔不是一个超级面孔识别者，当他出现在一个辨认面孔整体水平很强的社区时，就显得像得了人面失认症。

For the most part, where you fall on the face recognition spectrum may not matter. But if, say, you're an eyewitness⁵ in a murder trial, then your relative ability for recalling faces might become a pivotal fact in the trial.

就绝大部分而言，你属于哪个范围并不要紧。然而，万一你是一桩犯罪案件的目击者，那么你识别面孔的能力就是审判的关键所在了。