It’s nothing new that a lot of us think that cars have faces—it’s a widespread phenomenon! According to Smithsonian Magazine, one of the most commonly recognized faces in everyday objects is cars. That’s because of their symmetrical design and because their headlights can show off their character surprisingly well. If I were to tell you that a certain car looks sad or happy, then you’d most likely get what I’m saying!
A study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the automobile experts’ brain area involved in facial recognition, the fusiform face area, is activated when they look at the fronts of cars. The findings suggest that because the FFA activates when looking at objects like cars, too, that the brain doesn’t have a specific place just for faces.
We’re programmed to remember faces a lot better and longer than other things. Odds are, you can probably remember the waiter’s face from last week’s lunch much better than the sign of the cafe you were at or what kind of chair you sat on. (Or even what you ate!)
Because faces matter a whole bunch, it’s no surprise that we tend to go for cars with ‘aggressive’ and ‘angry’ faces, according to scientists. One study showed that people prefer to go for cars that radiate power through the way their faces look with “slit-like or angled headlights with a wider air intake. Now, let’s have a look at which car-celebs fit that description.
