I’m a case of mild prosopagnosia (face blindness; "mild", that’s my assessment based on my own experience, I read about the severe cases). My ability to recognize faces is somewhat impaired, while other aspects of visual recognition and processing is normal (well, that’s also my assessment). Because face is an important identifying feature in social life, I can tell you stories about the difficulties to socialize normally with others. But the present writing is on another face recognition subject: the trust based on the features of human face. What it is about certain human faces that makes them look either trustworthy or fearsome?

It’s hard to resist the temptation to judge strangers by their faces. I’ve stumbled on the photo on the right while browsing the Google images for something else. Of course I didn’t recognize the man, I’ve warned you about that in the first paragraph. I felt attracted to the man, I sensed I can trust that man. I would believe what he says, I would follow his advice.