Double

How do we recognise faces? Or, come to that, other things about people which make us able to identify them?

Today I saw a lady I've known for about fifteen years - - but haven't seen her for at least a year. I saw just the back of her head and instantly knew it was her. Many elderly ladies look a bit like her from the back - - curly grey hair - - but instantly I knew it was her curly grey hair.

And yet, if you had asked me to describe this lady's hair before I saw it, I would not have been able to do so. I would have just gone "er - grey, I think."

There have been two other instances of this kind of thing recently.

When I was in London a couple of weeks ago I saw someone whom I recognised - she was about twenty-five, sitting at a table across from me in a cafe. I was about to call out to her and even got as far as standing up before realising - - hey, wait a minute - - this girl is twenty-five or so - - but the person I know is - er - - fifty-five or so. Though when I first met her, about thirty years ago, she looked just like this girl in the cafe.

It was hard not to stare as I tried to work out exactly what it was about her that made her look like my old friend. Hair? Eyes? Mouth? It was the combination, I suppose - - and yet if you'd asked me to describe how my friend looked twenty-five years ago, I would have said "Errr - - she was slim and she had short dark hair." And that would be about it.

Last week, when a very similar thing happened, I was astonished, but a bit more prepared to work out why. One of the second-year medical students looked incredibly like one of my friends from school. This time, because she was in the group I was working with, I had a chance to have a good look at her.

So, I thought, using this girl as a reference, since she looks so like my friend Shirley, what did Shirley used to look like? What was it about her that reminded me of Shirley?

Blondish curly hair, for a start: a slim build: a turned-up nose - - the shape of the eyes. And, although of course styles have changed greatly, she had a similar kind of dress sense - - all lace and frills.

It was strange that seeing this girl helped me to remember more about Shirley than I thought I knew.

So it's all stored in there somewhere, I suppose, in our heads - - all that visual information, amazingly. It's just a question of finding the right button to press to get at it.