Face recognition in humans is another form of the SS-IRM-FAP system of patternicity, and it begins shortly after birth. (…) Two…

“Face recognition in humans is another form of the SS-IRM-FAP system of patternicity, and it begins shortly after birth. (…) Two black dots on a cardboard cutout elicit a smile in infants, although one dot does not, indicating that the newborn brain is preconditioned by evolution to look for and find the simple pattern of a face represented by two to four data points: two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, which may even be represented as two dots, a vertical line, and a horizontal line.”

– Shermer, Michael. The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies — How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths. New York: Times Books, 2011. (viacarvalhais)