Why you recognize faces but forget names

Do you know that? You introduce yourself to someone and four seconds later you have no idea what that person's name is.

But if you run into that same person a week later at a party, you do recognize him or her. It happens to me so often. I'm cycling through the city and then it's like: hey, heeeey! Oh right, that's that girl who always wears a ponytail and has a really beautiful red coat and laughs so hard and has such beautiful teeth and is together with that one guy who has his own business two streets behind us. No idea what her name is, but I know her. How is it that we forget people's names so quickly but can remember a face forever? That you could still pick out vague classmates from sixteen years ago from a line of strangers but barely know what your neighbor's name is because you weren't listening when she said her first name and now it's awkward when you have to ask again what her name is?

According to science, it is something very natural and it is even logical that it happens. Our brains are better at storing visual information. In other words: faces. You see that and you remember it without having to think about it. It happens automatically. What we hear we remember less well. Additionally, a name says less than a face. A face has an expression, you see someone's age (usually), someone's background, someone's attractiveness, someone's gender, someone's mood. You read all that when you look at someone. A name is actually nothing more than a short string of letters and, well, you hear that all day long.

Still, it is incredibly awkward. Recently I was at a party of a friend (yes, I know her name). And then a girl came up to me and said: ‘Ooooooh heeeeey, Tess, how are you doing with your twin? And oooh, your wedding photos looked beautiful! And how was the honeymoon to Hawaii, any tips for me if I go that way?’ I felt so bad but I had no clue who she was. No name and for a change also no face. How come she knew me and seemed to know almost everything about my life from the past year ? I immediately felt guilty. And if I run into her now, I also enthusiastically say hello to her and accidentally to anyone who looks a bit like her too. I'm sorry. Some people are just better at these kinds of things.