Testing Peepers on Pixels: A Demo of Human Recognition Accuracy for Low Resolution Faces

How well can humans recognize faces at extremely low resolution? We conducted a controlled study with 100 participants to evaluate this question—and now FG2025 attendees can try it for themselves. Our interactive demo challenges attendees to match heavily degraded probe images to high-quality reference images, simulating conditions common in operational face recognition contexts. In doing so, it highlights the perceptual limits of human recognition and the risk of misidentification in high-stakes settings. The demo runs offline on standard laptops, collects no personal data, and takes about three minutes to complete.