I like what you did there.
Disguise yourself from a person who knows you well? Probably not. There’s not just appearance, but voice, stance, gait, mannerisms, etc. that would often give it away even with an otherwise foolproof disguise; and masks and such are not particularly convincing up close. If you can recognize someone from the sound of their footsteps, or as an earlier poster mentioned by the way they move and the sounds they make even at night when you can’t see any details, I think it would be really, really hard to convince someone who knows you at all well that you’re someone else entirely.
I’m shit with names[sup]*[/sup], but remember everything else about people well. I often remember people I’ve only met a couple of times well enough to recognize them months or in some cases years later. I pick up on changes in appearance almost immediately, and can recognize someone I know in a crowd from behind just by the way they walk.
But there are things like Billy Tipton hiding his birth sex from the people around him, and audience members being shocked at the reveal in this movie that make me think that maybe I’m the minority here.
Flipping genders is about the most comprehensive transformation a person can do, and one glance at a picture of Billy, and about 5 seconds after seeing Dil, I knew what apparently eluded some people for decades in one case, and over an hour in another. To me, it’s blindingly obvious once anyone is within spitting distance of puberty — no matter what they present and identify as — what sex body they got stuck in. I first saw Haruna Ai on a variety show panel with a bunch of other non-transgender guests, (they never made any mention of her status during the show) and it took me only a few seconds to confirm with my Japanese wife, “She used to be a dude, right?” She won the biggest transgender beauty contest in Thailand, and apparently has been presenting as female since she was a pre-teen, so it’s not like she’s unconvincing. I’ll treat anyone as whatever gender they prefer to present, but I recognize sex characteristics right away. IMO, you’ve got to be into Buck Angel territory before it would take more than a few seconds.
So, hellifIknow what most people can recognize about other people they know. Maybe a disguise I see through almost instantly would be totally convincing to a person’s friends and family. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
[sup]*[/sup] To the point where I literally blanked on the name of a girl I’d been dating for a couple of weeks when I ran into a friend of mine and was socially obligated to introduce her to him. She forgave me … eventually.
It’s not impossible, it would just take alot of forethought and practice. Like I’ve mentioned before a few times, “a person who knows you well” is subjective. It might be alot more difficult to fool someone who’s known you your entire life vs someone who’s only known you for a few months. It also depends on the person doing the recognizing and how aware they are.
http://www.just-health.net/How-to-Change-Your-Voice.html
I also wouldn’t bother with masks either. I would however consider a facial prosthetic like a nose or a chin, if it’s done well and blended in and combined with a pair of glasses and eye color changing contacts, it could be very convincing. They also now makes realistic looking temporary tattoos that are of excellent quality and don’t wash of easily. This definitely throw someone off who wouldn’t be expecting someone they know to have a tattoo.
Consider this study that was done,
Lifts in your shoes to make you walk different and give you a different height. And “Potato” tattooed upside down on your arm to distract them.
Context is everything. Context and dishonesty. The two main points are context, dishonesty, and appearance…
You have difficulty recognizing people out of context. (But some people are very good at it anyway. And most people just believe what they are told: we don’t expect lies. And we learn how to recognize people by their distinctive features: if you go to a very foreign country, you can expect to find that everybody looks the same to you. Personally, I look at noses: around here, there are a lot of different noses.
When I was younger, I worked for two years with a guy who had a GF who attended art school. She wore bulky clothes, had long straight hair, and a bit of acne. I saw her every day when she picked my friend up from work and we were often visiting at their apartment.
One year we had a Halloween party and I kept trying to make conversation with this woman who was wearing a Playboy bunny outfit. She had an absolutely incredible figure, great hair, and was wearing a small domino mask. Yup…it took someone else to mention that it was my co-worker’s GF. She had styled her hair nicely and the domino covered quite a bit of her acne. Of course, I had no idea that she had that kind of figure, either. Those three changes made her totally unrecognizable to me. (Fortunately, I found out before I made a fool of myself.)
I remember reading that you should pit a pebble in your shoe (to disrupt your normal gait).
Sit in a wheelchair, hang your head and make no eye contact. Few people will recognize you.
A couple of weeks ago, I followed Mrs. L.A. to the Toyota dealer, where she was having a factory recall addressed. She got out of her car and was met by someone in the Service area. I walked up behind her. Later, she said that she hadn’t recognised me. I’ve lost 70 pounds in the last year and a half. Even though she’s seen my transformation, she seldom leaves the house. Apparently, she was unused to seeing me in unfamiliar surroundings; especially since I came from behind her and she’d first seen my out of the corner of her eye.
I’m sure its innocent… but… I had the same reaction. This seems a little bit over the line. If ‘stalkerish’ was a real word… yeah but it’s not.
A disguise worked for Mrs Doubtfire.
I seriously doubt in the real word that guy could fool his ex-wife and kids for more than a few minutes.
I think you’re reading too much into it…
Keep in mind though, he had a full on mask that was surprisingly realistic. He also changed his entire persona from his voice down to his walk. But, it was a movie afterall.
Not even: clothing, accesories, demeanor and even location can make a world of difference. Back when I was in college (ChemE), my friends and I discovered that, despite the four of us going together pretty much everywhere and looking quite distinctive as a pack, just by:
- switching our lab-ready clothes for fashionable ones,
- wearing contacts or our newest glasses rather than the biggest ones we had,
- putting on a very-moderate amount of makeup,
- and doing our hair (not even needing to go to the hairdresser),
a surprising amount of our male classmates didn’t recognize us until we walked straight up to them and said “hi, guys!” (*4).
I once was greeted at the train station by this super-tall guy who was there with his tiny wife and two boys. The guy was wearing that year’s Barça’s second uniform, whose main area was highlighter yellow. I answered “uhm… hi?” “You’ve got no idea who I am :D” “I’ll willingly admit I don’t” “From work” “
…:dubious:…:dubious:… OOOOH! You’re the programmer who always leaves his phone behind! You cheat! Every time I see you you’re wearing all grey and slinked down under your desk! I didn’t even know you were this tall.”
His wife was laughing sooo hard at my signed description of the way he draped himself over the chair and under the desk.
Fine point well taken. I have no insight into people who would think this is fun.
Very interesting that it didn’t take much to not be recognized. I was always under the impression that distinct facial features such as a nose or a chin would make anybody recognizable.
From the end of that article:
From the linked study abstract:
(Emphasis mine).
It might be relatively easy to disguise yourself from strangers, but people who know you are much less likely to be fooled.
Depends on the definition of what you mean when you say someone that knows you well. Also depends on how convincing the disguise is.
From that article that you linked that I found interesting,
“Dr Noyes emphasised: “Our models used inexpensive simple disguises and there were no make-up artists involved. If people want to, it’s very easy to change their appearance.”
“Even simple disguise reduces accuracy of human face recognition. Next, we will test how computer face recognition algorithms fare on the same tasks” said Dr Noyes.”
And these were just simple disguises. Imagine what the results would’ve been if they went the extra mile and put more effort in disguising.
one data point on this.
Walking down an unfamiliar town street just the other day my wife and I ran into her sister, pretty much literally. She was waving at us and we were looking behind us to see who she was waving at. Neither of us recognised her.
Her hair was down and the wind was blowing it into an unfamiliar style and we weren’t expecting to see her in that place either.
Now I’m fairly face-blind but my wife isn’t and if her sister hadn’t made herself known we’d have walked right past her, no great amount of disguise needed.
My first wife fooled me. Many years ago she got it into her head that I preferred blondes (she was brunette). She mentioned it a few times fairly pointedly. We went to a party and I can’t remember why but we drove separately. The party was a large group of friends and I knew almost everyone. But sitting at a nearby table was a blonde women I was really taken with. I kept glancing at her as she talked with another friend. She was really intriguing and I think I stared a bit too much. After about 15 minutes she walked over to me and said, “Well, what do you think”? It was my wife in blonde wig and sexy clothes borrowed from her sister. Until she spoke I was oddly attracted but did not recognize her.
Dennis
That’s right out of Being John Malkovich! (Sorry for the hijack).