WOMEN beat men hands down when it comes to recognising faces, according to an
Internet-based experiment conducted in Sweden. The finding could mean that
employers may have to rethink their hiring strategies in hitherto male-dominated
industries such as security.
Josef Bigun and his colleagues at Halmstad University approached 10,000
people via e-mail, asking them to take part in an online face-recognition trial.
More than 1800 took part. 鈥淭he results are quite sizeable, you can see that
there鈥檚 a difference,鈥� says Bigun.
They found that not only were women much better at face recognition than men,
but they were also less susceptible to distracting factors such as hairstyles or
changes in facial expression. 鈥淚n other words, the best female skills were far
better than the best male skills,鈥� explains Bigun.
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Subjects were given eight face-matching tasks to complete. They were shown a
picture of a face and then shown 10 similar faces under different conditions,
such as a selection of similar-looking profiles or silhouetted faces, different
facial expressions and varying degrees of picture quality.
At this stage, it鈥檚 difficult to explain the results, says Bigun. 鈥淢y guess
is that it鈥檚 a combination of training and genetic predisposition.鈥� He
speculates that one reason women are better at studying and remembering faces is
that they are more likely to take on the role of primary carer in the family,
and may have lengthier eye contact with children.
Whatever the reason, says Bigun, when it comes to employing someone in a job
where facial recognition is important鈥攕uch as a security guard or a
customs officer鈥攈e would always choose a woman. His group will present
their results at the Audio and Video-based Biometrics Person Authentication
conference in Halmstad next month.