"Well, they all look alike to me"

This game is kind of a cross between Concentration & Guess Who. At the risk of sounding racist, what inspired it was a story I heard on the radio that one reason lineups don't work is because we're all better at recognizing our own race. But that's not the point, there are plenty of other reasons to want to get over that and be able to see people's uniquenesses.

So you have a bunch of cards with just faces on them. These are real photographs, not funny faces like Guess Who. You could buy different decks, one with Asian, one with caucasian & so on, or the whole set. There are several ways you can use the decks. You could play with partners or on your own. The object is to recognize the card that you picked and then buried in the deck.

A more advanced play would be to learn to recognize the differences between groups, for example Latin America. Like "pick out all the ones from Peru". I once implied that a former boss was from Japan -- he was from China. He seemed a bit annoyed but said nothing, I was only 18 after all.

Of course the cards would have to be almost stereotypical when the reality is that the world is becoming more mixed-race. And looking at pictures of faces can never be as effective as really getting to know people, but don't you think it sounds "fun and educational"?
-- mack2, Feb 20 2005

Training to recognize faces of other races http://www.psy.fsu....files/cresearch.htm
The jury is out. [robinism, Feb 20 2005]

I don't even think I'd recognize myself in a lineup; that's how bad at facial recognition I am. But, this is a good idea, and educational too. +
-- phundug, Feb 21 2005


[phundug] - glad you said that - me too :-( I can have a half-hour conversation with someone, then bump into them half and hour later and not recognise them. V. embarrassing, and I'm not a genius so I can't call it 'eccentricity'.... So, I'd buy this just to train on [+].
-- Basepair, Feb 21 2005



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