What makes something unique? What are the elements that we remember most distinctly about people we have only met once or recall from our past, and why do these elements stand out?
In fact, the answer to all these questions is because we make distinctions from salient characteristics, or distinguishing features.
When considering people, someone’s abundance or lack of hair, their hair color and type, the size and shape of their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, if their chin is cleft or not, if they have anything pierced, the size of their head, their mustache or beard, their height and weight, and their personal style all make a person unique. When we remember someone, we think about what made them look different from the many other people we have met in our lifetime. We draw upon a person’s salient characteristics.
The most simple example of such, though highly dramatized, is a caricature. Artists that do caricatures have developed an eye for what makes someone look the way they do, and a talent for exaggerating their salient characteristics.
In this caricature, George Clooney’s features such as his pronounced chin, eyes, eyebrow lift, and his signature smirk, along with the added obvious elements of his gray hair and suit gives this cartoon an essence that makes it instantly apparent whom this caricature is supposed to resemble. These are George Clooney’s salient characteristics because though the caricature obviously doesn’t look like a picture of George Clooney, we know who it is.
Not all characteristics have to be as exaggerated as these, but a caricature is the simplest way to demonstrate the importance of salient characteristics to capturing the essence of something, whether it be man or object, that one is trying to depict accurately.
So then what is the role of salient characteristics in society?
Actually, being able to sift out salient characteristics from all the other features can be a valuable skill for many types of artists and designers. More than just caricaturists, it seems, learn to utilize salient characteristics. Photographers also work to find the essence of a person to highlight, rather than just capture, what it is everyone else sees. Designers can pick out the essence of a product, or even problem, and create something that best shows off the item or fills the need. Clearly, salient characteristics, though sometimes not obvious, can be very valuable if they are detected.
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