Sure, we can recognize someone from his or her backside, walk, gestures, but it’s the face that says definitively, “This is So-n-So.” It’s the face that foreshadows behavior. It’s the face that shows the mind. Clams don’t have faces. But lots of organisms do. So, although we can’t tell what a clam is thinking from an expression, we seem to be able to tell what dogs, cats, and a number of other organisms are about to do by interpreting their facial expressions. Maybe we make the mistake at times of ascribing human expressions to animals, but often we get the message. “I’m not going to attack.” Of course, anthropomorphized versions of animals ignore that dogs seem to think a show of teeth is a threat if the teeth barer is another dog or animal, but they seem to recognize after millennia of life with humans, that smiles revealing teeth aren’t signs of impending attack. Nevertheless…
ONE: “I had a little turtle when I was young. A number of my friends also had them. I cannot remember whether or not I named it, whether or not it lived long, or whether or not it died in captivity or after some accidental or purposeful release into the “wild” of my neighborhood. I was pretty young.”
TWO: “One of my relatives wrote his M.A. thesis on turtles. He had an enclosed maze in the lab, a box that he could rotate. Into the box he would put turtles one at a time, all diapered. The science building was next to a river, and he wanted to see whether or not a turtle would orient itself in the passageway that led to the river, even though the turtle couldn’t see outside the maze. You know, I can’t remember the results, but I think the turtles generally walked down the passage oriented toward the river. Strange. How could a turtle sense the direction to the river without seeing it? I should go look up that thesis to see what he discovered—or thought he discovered. Interesting because that relative is now suffering from Alzheimer’s, meaning that he probably couldn’t recognize my face.”
ONE: “Turtles. I get one occasionally walking from the stream that cuts through my property. I call him ‘Fluffy.’ Anyway, Fluffy has come and gone over the years, and since I didn’t mark his shell with some lasting paint, each summer’s Fluffy might not even be the original Fluffy. When the turtle appears during summer, I usually orient him toward the stream and away from areas where the power mower might do him harm. By the way, I don’t know if Fluffy is a he or she. Just sayin’. Fluff’s able to survive in the woods and stream on my property or has a bunch of offspring that look just like Dad (or Mom).”
TWO: “Did you see the recent study that shows tortoises orient themselves toward ‘faces.’”?
ONE: “No, enlighten me.”
TWO: “Elisabetta Versace and others wrote a paper on how tortoise hatchlings tend to orient themselves in the direction of a ‘face,’ not actually a ‘face,’ but something like a smiley face, just a couple of dots for eyes and a dot for a mouth. Kind of amazing. Versace found that the tortoises ‘faced’ the fake ‘faces’ 70% of the time.”*
ONE: “So, what’s the big deal? Sounds like the M.A. thesis on the turtles in the boxed maze.”
TWO: “Turtles are solitary critters. They get no maternal care. We already know that human infants spend considerable time looking at their mothers’ faces, but turtles…They hatch and go. Mom’s not even around. How is it that such critters are fond of faces from the outset? Must be something innate about faces. Could be that faces are on the head and that faces show either friendship or menace. Could be that faces reveal danger, for example. Versace says that the tendency to orient toward a ‘virtual face’ is written in the genes. That would mean an ancient development of the most fundamental level of life.”**
ONE: “I can understand that. Look, don’t we humans put a great emphasis on faces? Think. We have all kinds of stereotypes: Frankenstein, Alien, model, villain…Just thought. I wonder whether or not there is a list of stereotypical faces.”
TWO: “Good thought. Let me look it up. Oh! Found face shapes on the Web: Square, triangular, oblong, round, and oval. Here’s another: Pear. Geez. Here’s a site that lists nine shapes for male faces. So, someone’s put some thought into face structure.”
ONE: “No, not stereotypical structure. I meant with respect to danger or benefit.”
TWO: “Am I reading this correctly? When I pull up stuff on faces, I see ‘384,000,000 results.’ That’s more than I want to know. Don’t we all just know when a face shows anger or happiness?”
ONE: “Probably, but we all know that pathological liars can fool just about anyone. Actors, too.”
TWO: “Amazing, isn’t it? Hundreds of millions of years of faces, and we still have to guess what they tell us. And when we look in the mirror, do we interpret that face correctly? Do we ever see what others see?”
ONE: “Maybe like the tortoises staring at a smiley face, we just read the details we want to see. Eyes in the right place, nose where it should be. Mouth just so.”
*https://phys.org/news/2020-09-tortoise-hatchlings-resembling.html
**Photo credit: Gionata Stancher.
ONE: “I had a little turtle when I was young. A number of my friends also had them. I cannot remember whether or not I named it, whether or not it lived long, or whether or not it died in captivity or after some accidental or purposeful release into the “wild” of my neighborhood. I was pretty young.”
TWO: “One of my relatives wrote his M.A. thesis on turtles. He had an enclosed maze in the lab, a box that he could rotate. Into the box he would put turtles one at a time, all diapered. The science building was next to a river, and he wanted to see whether or not a turtle would orient itself in the passageway that led to the river, even though the turtle couldn’t see outside the maze. You know, I can’t remember the results, but I think the turtles generally walked down the passage oriented toward the river. Strange. How could a turtle sense the direction to the river without seeing it? I should go look up that thesis to see what he discovered—or thought he discovered. Interesting because that relative is now suffering from Alzheimer’s, meaning that he probably couldn’t recognize my face.”
ONE: “Turtles. I get one occasionally walking from the stream that cuts through my property. I call him ‘Fluffy.’ Anyway, Fluffy has come and gone over the years, and since I didn’t mark his shell with some lasting paint, each summer’s Fluffy might not even be the original Fluffy. When the turtle appears during summer, I usually orient him toward the stream and away from areas where the power mower might do him harm. By the way, I don’t know if Fluffy is a he or she. Just sayin’. Fluff’s able to survive in the woods and stream on my property or has a bunch of offspring that look just like Dad (or Mom).”
TWO: “Did you see the recent study that shows tortoises orient themselves toward ‘faces.’”?
ONE: “No, enlighten me.”
TWO: “Elisabetta Versace and others wrote a paper on how tortoise hatchlings tend to orient themselves in the direction of a ‘face,’ not actually a ‘face,’ but something like a smiley face, just a couple of dots for eyes and a dot for a mouth. Kind of amazing. Versace found that the tortoises ‘faced’ the fake ‘faces’ 70% of the time.”*
ONE: “So, what’s the big deal? Sounds like the M.A. thesis on the turtles in the boxed maze.”
TWO: “Turtles are solitary critters. They get no maternal care. We already know that human infants spend considerable time looking at their mothers’ faces, but turtles…They hatch and go. Mom’s not even around. How is it that such critters are fond of faces from the outset? Must be something innate about faces. Could be that faces are on the head and that faces show either friendship or menace. Could be that faces reveal danger, for example. Versace says that the tendency to orient toward a ‘virtual face’ is written in the genes. That would mean an ancient development of the most fundamental level of life.”**
ONE: “I can understand that. Look, don’t we humans put a great emphasis on faces? Think. We have all kinds of stereotypes: Frankenstein, Alien, model, villain…Just thought. I wonder whether or not there is a list of stereotypical faces.”
TWO: “Good thought. Let me look it up. Oh! Found face shapes on the Web: Square, triangular, oblong, round, and oval. Here’s another: Pear. Geez. Here’s a site that lists nine shapes for male faces. So, someone’s put some thought into face structure.”
ONE: “No, not stereotypical structure. I meant with respect to danger or benefit.”
TWO: “Am I reading this correctly? When I pull up stuff on faces, I see ‘384,000,000 results.’ That’s more than I want to know. Don’t we all just know when a face shows anger or happiness?”
ONE: “Probably, but we all know that pathological liars can fool just about anyone. Actors, too.”
TWO: “Amazing, isn’t it? Hundreds of millions of years of faces, and we still have to guess what they tell us. And when we look in the mirror, do we interpret that face correctly? Do we ever see what others see?”
ONE: “Maybe like the tortoises staring at a smiley face, we just read the details we want to see. Eyes in the right place, nose where it should be. Mouth just so.”
*https://phys.org/news/2020-09-tortoise-hatchlings-resembling.html
**Photo credit: Gionata Stancher.
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