ABSTRACT
Knowledge is always hard won, and gaining knowledge in psychology can be particularly tricky because we naturally make all kinds of assumptions that seem like common sense and are validated by our own experience. For faces, most of us think that we can recognise people we know without much difficulty and usually almost instantaneously. We don't expect face recognition to be susceptible to error, and we think that photographs or videos are accurate records of an individual's appearance that present no problems of interpretation. These experiences are encapsulated in sayings like ‘I never forget a face’ or ‘the camera doesn't lie’. When carefully investigated, though, some of these assumptions turn out to be misleading or only partly correct, making everyday experience something that remains obviously relevant but has to be treated cautiously.
