It seems insects might be able to see much more than we previously thought. New research has revealed that both the honeybees and wasps are able to learn achromatic (black and white) images of human faces. Despite having tiny brains made up of just one million brain cells – compared to the 86 billion that make up a human brain – they appear to visually process faces in a similar way to how we do. This is despite them having no evolutionary reason for doing so, writes Dr Adrian Dyer, an associate professor from RMIT University in Australia for The Conversation. Understanding how this developed could help researchers create smarter artificial intelligence, Dr Dyer says.

"Face recognition is an important social skill, but not all of us are equally good at it," says Beijing Normal University cognitive psychologist Jia Liu. A new study by Liu and colleagues Ruosi Wang, Jingguang Li, Huizhen Fang, and Moqian Tian provides the first experimental evidence that the inequality of abilities is rooted in the unique way in which the mind perceives faces. "Individuals who process faces more holistically"--that is, as an integrated whole--"are better at face recognition," says Liu. The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. In daily life, we recognize faces both holistically and also "analytically"--that is, picking out individual parts, such as eyes or nose.