Facial recognition improves with exposure just as language. I can clearly remember i had trouble telling asians apart when i was younger, but after having spent a lot of time in east Asia distinguishing east asian faces became just as easy as distinguishing caucasian ones

Hey ProZD! It was so nice of you to take over this channel for a video. I was wondering why your voice wasn't as deep as usual, but good voice actors obviously perfect their craft 😆

This applies to Europeans too, I’m European so I can easily tell the various European ethnicities apart based of facial structure alone. You don’t need to hear them speak their language. It’s pretty easy to tell Europeans apart. But I also believe other races are terrible at telling other racial ethnicities apart. I work with Indians and Pakistanis and many times I’ve been called the name of some other guy who is ginger but I look nothing like him. Meanwhile I mistake them for other people who I think looks like them. It’s normal. Edit: 1:27 okay so you mention this phenomenon

I've been lead to believe that adults aren't actually worse than infants at aquiring language. and in fact, they are more efficient at it. Not only does the adult have greater capacity for processing abstract ideas and turning those into rules to be followed, but they also already conceptually understand some of those abstract ideas, such as "verbs" or "conjugations", meaning they only need to use those concepts in new ways, instead of intuiting those concepts fresh. However, an infant spends many hours every day immersed in their target language, something the majority of adult language learners don't do. Aparently, the ability to recognize and distinguish new sounds is however greatly diminished after around the 2-year old mark.

I can't believe you are making KZfaq videos now, John!

I moved to West Africa for a while and in the beginning it was very hard to distinguish the local people (me being a white dude from Europe), but after a couple of weeks I could see the subtle differences and I didn't find it hard at all anymore. Interesting how the brain works.

I don't have any Asian ancestry; I'm a mix of African and white. But I grew up in a very white culture (suburban Australia, in the 90s) where I was always one of very few (maybe 5 or 6) non-white kids, at a school of 300-400 kids. Both teachers and students would often mix up my name, for the name of one the Asian kids in my year level (our names aren't similar at all; Just common names like Henry, Steven, Andrew etc) I think people just kinda mentally classify people they know into groups. And race (or even just "different race to me") is one of the groups our memory puts people into. So when you're trying to retrieve on person's name, it can be easy to pull out the name of another person in that mental group. I know I've done a similar thing, with two co-workers who don't REALLY look that much alike, but they both have bobbed, dark hair, and dress kinda similar, so I find myself constantly getting their names mixed up. I think I just mentally class them as "women with short, dark hair and old-lady clothes", so they "look the same to me", even though they don't really look the same, beyond those superficial traits.

i personally never understood people who say "all asians look the same" i never understood what they mean do they mean that "chinese/ japanese/koreans look the same " so they can't tell the difference between the 3 nationalities, or do they mean that "all asians look like 1 person", if the last one then it's so not true, although i'm european i rarely notice that someone looks a lot like someone, especially among regular asians, if we talk about celebrities and k-idols in particular it's understandable that they can look similar because their agencies hire artists who fit certain beauty standards, they get plastic surgeries to gain a certain look and have similar hairstyles, but normal people usually don't look similar to me, even if i find a person who resembles another person to me it doesn't happen more often then with white people

Living in Asia for a few years I can't remember ever having difficulty telling people apart, at least people I was familiar with. I hope this isn't too controversial, but I would also say that certain communities in Asia are much less genetically diverse than where I'm from in the US. Here I grew up around black folks, asian folks, latino folks, white folks and everything in between. Not to mention all the subvariations of those groups. I myself am part South American native, northern European, Scottish, Irish and Iberian. Most of my friends have similar backgrounds, although of course some are more genetically homogenous. But, in Asia the vast majority of the people I met carried 100% genetic material descending from their country of origin. So Koreans were from families that had always lived in Korea, same in Japan and Vietnam, etc. So I think there may be something to the idea that certain asian communities taken as a whole end up being more similar in their features than more diverse groups. Of course this doesn't apply across asian ethnic groups, only within them.

Ah I see, a fellow ProZD subscriber

The perceptual narrowing can also apply to many different stimuli like music. Songs from an unfamiliar genre sound the same until you start listening to them to develop insight.

Very interesting stuff! The in-group and out-group reasoning makes a lot of sense. That closing did get a laugh out of me. Good stuff, man! 👍

because 1. we all have the same coloured eyes, skin, eyebrows and hair colour. 2. we all have the same bald cut hairstyle when we were little, and the same semi long hair cut when we grow up 3. you don't see them a lot so you will think they look the same, like how we think all cats that is not our own look the same. To asians, they don't think they look the same

This is really interesting to learn about!! Thank you for making the video and sharing the info!

Holy crap, dude. Keep making videos like this and it will only be a matter of time before your channel explodes. This video was crazy good.

Excellent video, ProZD. Get those videos above 8 mins long so that once you're eligible, you can monetise them.

This is such amazing content, I am glad I stumbled upon this channel.

To the KPop point they also get so much surgery almost to look the same

Fun and interesting video and thanks for adding sources in the description

Hey man you earned my sub, you are an excellent teacher, and you have a good sense of humor too. I learned something new today. Thanks again and keep up the great content!

man this is some good content, thanks for talking abt it!

nice video I enjoyed it! Can you make a video about evolutinary mismatches and the traits we adapted but no longer need or just dont have to rely on them so heavily (otherwise might cause even harm) in this modern era of humanity

Thanks this was a cool video and i have wondered about this. Great video.

Wow I really got something from this video. Thank you for sharing your thoughts to the world :)

Nice video, I found your channel 2 days ago with the "Why jellyfish need sleep too" video. Since then I've watched all your videos and subscribed. Keep up the good work👍🏽

I've watched 3 of your videos now and was pretty much already set on subscribing to you but man you really sealed the deal with that Prozd joke at the end there. Great stuff man hope the algorthyme favors you soon

Stumbled upon your channel tonight, great channel. Oddly, have had a massive improvement in this specific area because of my rabid Sumo fandom. I went from having a hard time telling the rikishi apart to forgetting that other people have a hard time differentiating between the wrestlers. They have such varying styles of fighting and mannerisms that now even if you blurred their bodies and blocked their heads, I'm pretty sure I could decipher them. By the way, over the span of the few videos I've watched your sub count has been bouncing up, it's fun to watch and deserved.

Growing up in India, I used to have the same perception about North Asian people, and I remember people used to call them "Chinese" as they couldn't differentiate their faces and all North Asians looked the same to them, same as our perception about Africans and other races which are homogenous. Still, after moving to a part of India where a significant number of Tibetans were living I was exposed to them and then could differentiate the faces on a personal level, so yeah it's mostly about exposure, once you are exposed to other races you can tell Individuals apart quickly. By the way, I also want to add that I used to think about the topics that you are choosing to make your videos on, and finally, I am glad that someone is covering these interesting topics!! Keep up the good work, this is the 4th video I have watched in a row!!!

Great video. Keep it up Steven Yuen.

I appreciate your sharp wit. I feel that it adds to the educational value of your videos.

You deserve more views and subscribers bro. Amazing content.

Your videos are a very interesting and effective way to complicate ideas that are often removed of nuance in their "pop-sci" forms that most people encounter. Including links to further reading is also an awesome aspect I love to see! The idea that you ended on, that each and every single human being is unique, is not said enough in my view. Thank you for being a part of that. In v Out Grouping and Us/Them dynamics may be "hard wired" but we can control the "dial" on just how expansive we allow those groups to be. Even with this mindset at the core my own thinking, I find it useful to remind even myself on occasion of this fact: *Every single human being is just as complex, multifaceted and nuanced as yourself, in their own, singular way.* Everyone deserves the same opportunity to be heard and understood as we, ourselves do. Even identical twins, the closest analogue to cloning that occurs in nature shows epigenetic differences that only increase with time, to say nothing of the "nurture" side of the coin. I find it helps to keep this idea in focus when encountering new people. I hope it helps others too.

Seeing this channel grow before my eyes is soo fireeeeee

Your so smart.keep making videos ❤

Lovin ur videos bro, subject of substance, thanks, good luck 🤞

I just assumed the whole point with the asian boybands was that you weren't spouse to be able to tell them apart because they all had cosmetic surgery to look alike. 😯 I've never had any difficulty distinguishing between individuals in the general population but this video got me thinking... Would I actually mistake one person for another in low light conditions etc? I'm curious as to whether different ethnic groups have different priority of visual markers they subconsciously identify when recognizing faces, as per the phenotype they are more commonly exposed to. Say, per example, the nose bridge or lip curvature. Would that translate across broader "race" lines? Would it be easier for an Armenian to differentiate between Mongolians rather than Chinese ?

Oh great leader, we are blessed with another video, truly a glorious day indeed!

I have seen 5 black people irl in my entire life, but I can easily distinguish black faces. You can read hundreds of asians comments saying "even I sometimes have a hard time differentiate between certain asian people". There is definitely more to it than just lack of exposure.

Great video, and the algorithm knows it too. Congratulations have a good one

Keep up the good work man vid quality is better every time you make one as a fellow content creator hope your channel blow up, my only imput would be the background geta banner or something on the wall would be a nice ascetic I think keep up the great work your channel has aslot of intriguing video ideas this ccontent is ODINsARMY approved 😎

very nice, as always btw you do look like a very slim kim, but hey that might be my percetuall narrowing speaking

Omg same my teacher would always confuse me with another Asian girl but we don’t even look alike AT all.

This is a criminally underrated channel.

You have to be specific because Indians, Turkesh, Kazakstan, etc. are asians and they have variant features. East asians shouldve been the title

My brain only perceives that all Asian people look like alike. However I don’t have that trouble with other races.

It's actually interesting because you know those racial traits that mixed people have give them advantage to recognize other race faces that once your ancestor belonged. For example, I'm from Azerbaijan, we are turkic (original turks are asian), but to be honest we have mostly up to 30 percent Central Asian genes and about up to 10 percent from Central and Northern Asia (Turks and Mongol tribes) and the rest is pretty much Local Caucasian genes. What is interesting while some people have recognizing Asian faces I mostly do not unless the faces look really similar even in Asian people themselves. And the funny part is that I look nothing like an Asian maybe sometimes when i gain weight and get round shaped face, but generally no. So it's interesting that the genes that we have such an impact and not all of them are about effecting our look in order to make a real change in our abilities and functioning. btw GREAT VIDEO MAN, KEEP IT UP.

good shit man

u make amazing content

Good video my guy

Dang KZfaq is giving me good channels Subbed bro!

A very good video Supreme Leader. And you should do the video about in-groups and out-groups if you have time. Also there's something I want to comment on, the "the same as adults learning new languages (...) they might have a harder time than kids". Kids are not good with languages, I never understood why people claim this. A 12 year old is awful at their language, and they've had adults every single day of their life, but in the home and at school, correcting their language usage. An adult that studies and has a teacher will do much more progress in 5 years than a child in 12 while using alot less resources than the child.

I feel like the more you’re exposed to other races, the easier it gets to distinguish differences between people of those races. For example, when I was a teenager and I started getting into east asian media, it was super hard for me to remember which character was which, and who was named what. But now, I genuinely get confused whenever I get told that “they all look the same”, because I can see that they completely do not.

Love ur speaking voice

Best random KZfaq channel i found

Please do the ingroup and outgroup effects videos. Love your videos

All this said, Japanse police tend not to use traits like hair or eye color to identify Japanese suspects because these particular characteristics tend not to vary. "Who do all Asians look the same?" is a valid question in the sense that even though Asian nations have huge and varied populations, certain traits are still overwhelmingly dominant. As a point of comparison, even though brown hair is the most common across Europe, there are still people with black, blond, or red hair as well as variations within these colors. Why do these kinds of variations seem to be less common in Asia? Well, the long answer is presumably something in the population's genetic history. Part of it might be that darker hair is more effective at blocking UV radiation since it uses melanin; the same pigment that darkens the complexion of the skin. This would be consistent with how other regions with warm climates tend to have more people with darker hair, but that doesn't explain why people of African descent have darker skin than Asian populations if UV light is the deciding factor.

The first k-pop boy band I liked was called Shinee and I remember having such a hard time telling them apart at first, but afterwards I was like, "no way! they're so different! how on earth could I not tell them apart!"

Yoooo Ryan Higa is back!!

Your videos are top tier quality! Can't believe your Channel is only this small, but I am sure you'll blow up in due time! Keep up the excellent work. Love from Germany ❤

But Im asian and I really think that most of the Kpop members look very much alike and I cant tell the difference other than their hairstyle, height, and clothes! I think the plastic surgery plays a huge part in how we sometimes cant tell people apart. Its like yeah they all look pretty/handsome but theres nothing distinguishing about any of them like they got same nose, same eye shapes, same lips, same body...

An interesting idea

I thought he was Bobby Lee at first..... Damn great video! Explains a lot!

Oh come on, Kim is a cute lil guy. If you ignore, you know, literally everything else.

just how people perceive groups theyre unfamiliar with to us all animals of the same species (except dogs and colors for animals) look the same until we dig deeper edit: some pretty cool new info here i didnt know great vid

clicked on this video and i only just realized that it only has 144 views, this is really good

My first Kamen Rider series was Blade. It took me quite a while to figure out which medium-hair screaming Japanese pretty boy was which Rider when out of suit. Which was especially embarrassing because they each only had one civilian outfit. My second one, Kiva, did not have that problem and I really never had that problem for other Rider shows. It was JUST Blade and JUST near the start. Am I just stupid?

Some interesting and thought-provoking ideas here. But I feel that there was a major aspect to this that wasn't addressed. And that's related to the objective physical characteristics of ethnic groups. If you look at East Asians, they're mostly black-haired, brown eyes, of similar height, similar hair styles, etc. Compared to Americans they're objectively harder to distinguish given that Americans have much more varied heights, hair color, eye color, hair style, facial hair and so on.

Does it have any thing to do with "the nail that stuck out gets hammered down" culture of the Asians?

I hope you enjoy your trip to Russia Kim

I was going to say, I can't believe Kim Jong Un has a KZfaq channel. Also, Garrett Wang from ST:VOY and that Korean guy from MAD TV.

Man, didn't know Disguised Toast had a second channel and was so good at explaining things.

Thank u sir

How does plastic surgery factor into this, especially regarding the K-Pop scene? I mean as a European white dude I noticed that I have grown to distinguish between Asian faces way better over time, but I still struggle with K-Pop stars a lot. Could this be caused by their rampant plastic surgery use? I think its similar to Hollywood starlets starting to look similar because theyre all having their cheek fat removed or when the Kardashian look was popular

You literally all have jet black hair and eyes. Europeans have blond, brown, red, dark and every variation in between along with blue, brown, green and every variation in between eye colours. Of course its easier to tell the latter apart then the former.

i would love a video about ingroup and outgroup.

Ahh core i7 baby-brain-lake, how exiting.

Now I can't erase this Kim from you 😂

This should be taught in basic school. It's just Science

This sounds more like the GAIN of ability at 9 months not loss. Instead the gain of heightened ability to discriminate the common faces babies see as their par is generally lower. It looks like a loss at first glance but its really not, its just a specialized gain causing par to fall below when applied to wider set.

Great vid! It also doesn't exactly help that the K-pop scene promotes a very specific look which discourages unique traits and features...

When I lived in Japan for a while, I experienced going from having a hard time telling everyone apart to thinking Japanese people were so wildly diverse in looks that one would be a fool to ever confuse anyone. It felt like the sameness melted away over time and everyone’s features became more pronounced the more I was exposed to them. At the end of my stay, I started thinking white people like myself were the ones who looked samey and weird… It might be connected to my medium case of face blindness though, because I’ve experienced something similar among white people: usually every time I meet a new group of people (classmates, colleagues etc) there is going to be a certain number of blonde, blue-eyed women of average stature (a very common phenotype where I live) who dress in a mainstream feminine way, and in the beginning I will be struggling to even identify them as classmates, let alone tell them apart. Usually, I anchor on to someone in the group with an obvious standout trait (mohawk, pink hair, hijab, unusually tall, bald, dresses in a subculture style, etc) just to be able to identify the group. But then, over time, just like the Japanese, the blondes will start to morph into distinct people in my mind, until I can’t understand how I could ever mistake one for another. It’s an absolutely wild feeling.

You never mistaking somebody for somebody else

I think there are other tendancies that counteract this, otherwise we would never have developed any level of multiracial society or cooperation between groups whatsoever. But perhaps more importantly there are advantages to being able to work with people outside the tribe. For one thing, you could expand the tribe's gene pool: if the tribe has a few consecutive rough winters or something, there might not be enough genetic diversity to go around and what would normally be a stable breeding population might spiral into incest without outsdie . . . intercourse. It's important to remember that incest is one of the few things which is a universal human taboo. That is fundementally what I think counteracts this in-group tendancy: we want our familes to be close. But not _too_ close. In actual life, races that meet each other for the first time usually don't decide to kill each other on sight. The Japanese didn't kill every Portuguese ship that landed on their shores. in fact they quickly reached a mutually benefical arrangement where the Portugese would sell Japanese silver to the Chinese and then use the money to transport Chinese silk back to Japan. It's mainly when people are forced to compromise their way of life that murderous ideological tendancies start to mount. In conclusion, we are adapted to recognize people we are more related too more easily because that has more day-to-day practical applicability. In pre-industrial times, you may have needed to interact with people in the tribe on a constant basis, but you'd only see people outside the tribe infrequently. This explains this phenomenon without assuming that this is about the immidiate threat to one's life that the outgroup supposedly poses. It's more ambiguous. They _might_ be dangerous, but they might be just what you need.

its the epicanthic eye fold people mostly only identify

i'm a korean adopted by white people, and people would always say my sister and I look exactly alike, even though we are not biologically related. just because we are both asian. but on the other hand, some people would also say we look like our mom, which never made any sense to us since shes obviously white. when we met my sister's half biological brother, it cemented into me that people were just weird when they said I look like my sister. because it was obvious that he looked wayyy more similar to her than i did. in high school, people would always say i look like the asian girl from pitch perfect. they even took picures of me when i wasnt looking. i think i look nothing like her. teachers would always mistake me for a different asian girl as well. since i don't know any dna relatives, as i grew older, i noticed biological similarities between family members a lot more and developed a little jealousy about it. it honestly grew my resentment about times when people tried to compare me to other asian people. bc even though i did think it was hard to tell asians apart myself as a kid, now, i do not experience the other race effect with asians at all. instead i experience the "other dna effect"

One issue is hair color. White folk have a variety of hair colors. Not so with most Asians. I had a Japanese American friend who had brown hair. He said his relatives were constantly asking his parents: "When will his hair turn black?" In addition Europeans and their descendants have a variety of eye colors. Even the process of changing hair color as they age exists. Two of my daughters, and I, inherited my Mom's brown hair. As we reached our early 20's the hair turned black. My youngest daughter and granddaughter had blond hair which turned brown as they aged. No such variety or changes in Asians except black hair to gray.

Sorry to say it, but you kinda do look like Freddy

Okay , ik facial recognition is a practice thing and needed for different race. But i want to point one thing, living in US , people here find difficult to differentiate among east asian faces only , not europian, african, middle east, Indians. Why ? Because all other races have distinct features on their face. 1. Different Skin tone For ex, Indian subcontinent itself has so many skin tones variations, so you can clearly identify who is whome where 90%of chinese have similar skin tone. 2. Facial hairs People from other races gets good facial hairs , and many men of these races prefer to keep it on face which makes another distinct feature to identify. Hence these reasons significantly lead all other races to believe that chinese looks all same

Wonder if people that are not neurological typical have this same issue because I do not have this problem and I have dyslexia

Maybe for the same reason why I think all Europeans look the same

My 6 year old asked me why chinese people look different from western people. I tried to explain that it must have something to do with genes. Truthfully, it was a tough one to answer. But an interesting question without being offensive, I'm sure if one could go back in time... waay back... the answer will be very intersting to learn. As it must be about the origins of different races. If only there was a documentary I could watch and then share with my daughter..

Why include ProZD's channel at the end of this video? It would be funny if you were the same guy that did the "Goofy sings Bring Me to Life" video lmao

i keep doing this with two white girls at my work 😭 i dont mean to do it but im getting better at telling them apart

This sounds cocky, but I think I'm a special case because I have absolutely no problem telling individuals apart, no matter their race. It's so weird to me this ability isn't common (or at least, not as common as I thought it was).

i love you ProZD

Some ethnicities have fewer diversity in features. Japanese people have a similar skin tone, brown or black eyes and hair. Meanwhile a black American can be light skin, dark skin, green or brown eyes, variety of hair textures, etc.

I’m typically really good with languages and faces. But you don’t look like the people you’ve stated but u do look a little like Gwangil Jo

This is a nitpick and unnecessary comment but i do wish people would normalize saying 'East/Southeast Asian' instead of Asian because technically I do not look like you even though I am from the Asian continent. Otherwise it's a very informative video, especially about how it relates to Us vs Them

In ww2 they had books to teach americans to tell the difference between a japanese and a chinese

im arab, europeans and africans dont look same for me but asians look same for me is it because in north africa we have mix of all races ?