Transforming Recognition: A Type of Face Men Recognize Better Than Women
The purpose of the research study in this article was to test the influence our personal experiences have on the way we recognize faces. Previous research has shown that women have either equal or stronger facial recognition than men; until recently, no study had shown otherwise. A professor and graduate student at Vanderbilt University decided to test the influence of experience on facial recognition by looking at the differences between males and females. They used a group of subjects that had a clear difference in experience with the toys they played with as children. The men in the study (n = 161) had more experience playing with Transformers, and the women (n = 134) had more experience studying Barbie faces.
The participants were given 6 images to study, and then were shown a series of 3 images (only 1 image was from the images they studied) and were asked to identify the familiar face in each set. The pictures included human faces, Barbie faces, Transformer faces, and different automobiles. The results showed that men outperformed women when recognizing cars and Transformer faces, and women outperformed men when recognizing Barbie faces. Both men and women performed equally well when identifying human faces.
This article caught my attention because this was the first research study to date that has disproved the repeated results that women generally outperform men on facial recognition tests. These results suggest that individual experiences have a stronger influence our facial processing than biological factors, such as gender, do. Perhaps gender differences impact the experiences each person will come to have, but I found it fascinating that the brain mechanisms involved in processing our memories and experiences have a direct influence on our ability to recognize faces. This research could potentially speak volumes for understanding and treating prosopagnosia, a disorder caused by impairment to the fusiform face area in the inferotemporal cortex. Individuals with this disorder have intact object recognition, but are unable to detect faces. I think these advancements in the research will prove to be extremely beneficial for this field.
http://neurosciencenews.com/men-toy-transformer-face-recognition-5542/
The participants were given 6 images to study, and then were shown a series of 3 images (only 1 image was from the images they studied) and were asked to identify the familiar face in each set. The pictures included human faces, Barbie faces, Transformer faces, and different automobiles. The results showed that men outperformed women when recognizing cars and Transformer faces, and women outperformed men when recognizing Barbie faces. Both men and women performed equally well when identifying human faces.
This article caught my attention because this was the first research study to date that has disproved the repeated results that women generally outperform men on facial recognition tests. These results suggest that individual experiences have a stronger influence our facial processing than biological factors, such as gender, do. Perhaps gender differences impact the experiences each person will come to have, but I found it fascinating that the brain mechanisms involved in processing our memories and experiences have a direct influence on our ability to recognize faces. This research could potentially speak volumes for understanding and treating prosopagnosia, a disorder caused by impairment to the fusiform face area in the inferotemporal cortex. Individuals with this disorder have intact object recognition, but are unable to detect faces. I think these advancements in the research will prove to be extremely beneficial for this field.
http://neurosciencenews.com/men-toy-transformer-face-recognition-5542/
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