As I walk down Main Street in St. Paul, Minnesota, I see so many people who I assume I will never see again. As I turn the corner and enter a coffee shop, I recognize a person that I had passed by. I recognize the distinct facial features of this supposed stranger more than the hundreds of faces I have seen today. Facial recognition is critical to our lives as social human beings. In fact, we can recognize a face quickly due to our ability to process faces holistically. Holistic processing is when we process the entire face instead of looking at each separate facial feature. So was it that person\u2019s attractive face that made me recognize them? People are attracted to all different types of people, so does attraction influence facial recognition? Perhaps sexual orientation plays a role in a person\u2019s ability to recognize someone. One would think that heterosexual men and women would recognize the opposite sex better since they are attracted to them, but would that be the same for lesbians and gays?
\nTo answer this question, cognitive psychologists Steffens, Landman, and Mecklenbra\u00fcker (2013) tested whether sexual orientation causes people to recognize the face of one sex better than the other. The experimenters wanted to see if heterosexual men, heterosexual women, lesbians and gay men were all better at recognizing the sex that they were attracted to so they could determine if a person\u2019s sexual orientation should be a factor considered in research findings. In the experiment, Steffens et al. presented 32 photographs of non-distinctive Caucasian men and women to a large group of participant\u2019s who identified as heterosexual women, lesbian, heterosexual men, and gay men. The participants were then asked to judge the photographs based on attractiveness and distinctiveness on a 5 point- scale. They were then presented with 64 more photographs of faces, half of which had been presented for the rating task and half of which they had never seen before. Participants then responded with whether the picture was old or new, as a way for experimenters to measure recognition. Each participant then filled out demographic information and how strongly he or she is attracted to a same-gender person.
\nParalleling whom they are attracted to, results showed that heterosexual men will recognize women more than they will recognize men, just like gay men will recognize men more than women. For women, sexual orientation had no effect on recognizing men or women. The experimenters found that both lesbian and heterosexual women correctly recognized female photographs more than they recognized male photographs. The recognition of the photograph in the experiment is just like when I recognized the person I had passed by when I entered the coffee shop. I quickly recognized their face, and after glancing around I noticed a man checking out the girl in front of him in line because men tend to pay attention to the sex that they find attractive. This interaction was different than the woman in the corner of the shop who was glancing up at the women walking by, because women tend to pay more attention to the other women around them.
\nBut why do males and females differ in their ability to recognize certain gendered faces? Men consider facial attractiveness to be more important than women do. Since gay men are interested in males they have more practice recognizing them. Thus both heterosexual and gay men practice recognizing people whom they find attractive so they can find a potential mate. If women are not as concerned about facial attractiveness, what makes them different when it comes to facial recognition? As reviewed by Steffens et al. heterosexual women are more concerned about their competition. They tend to judge each other\u2019s attractiveness to gauge their threat to their relationship with men. This would explain why heterosexual women would be just as good at recognizing women as lesbians because they are both paying attention to the attractiveness of the women surrounding them.
\nSo next time you recognize someone, ask yourself, why did I notice him or her? Sexual orientation and gender have an impact on your recognition of the faces around you. So keep your eyes out for those hotties, because they could be a potential mate or your biggest competition.<\/p>\n
Works Cited:<\/p>\n
Steffens, Melanie C., S\u00f6ren Landmann, and Silvia Mecklenbr\u00e4uker. “Participant Sexual Orientation Matters: New Evidence on the Gender Bias in Face Recognition.” 60.5 (2013): 362-67. Experimental Psychology. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <http:\/\/0-psycnet.apa.org.library.colby.edu\/journals\/zea\/60\/5\/362.html<\/a>>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I walk down Main Street in St. Paul, Minnesota, I see so many people who I assume I will never see again. As I turn the corner and enter a coffee shop, I recognize a person that I had passed by. I recognize the distinct facial features of this supposed stranger more than the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4682,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80216,80215],"tags":[130411],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4682"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":892,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}