Posted on 01/27/2008 8:20:46 AM PST by mngran2
Talk about "gaydar." In just a fraction of a second, people can accurately judge the sexual orientation of other individuals by glancing at their faces, according to new research. The finding builds on the growing theory that the subconscious mind detects and probably guides much more of human behavior than is realized. Humans are remarkably good at making snap judgments about others. In a hallmark study conducted by psychologists Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal in 1994, people shown 2-second video clips of professors teaching formed opinions about the professors' teaching abilities that were uncannily similar to evaluations written by students at the end of a semester. The results led psychologists to begin questioning what else people might detect in a glance.
Ambady and colleague Nicholas Rule, both at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, wondered about sexual orientation. They showed men and women photos of 90 faces belonging to homosexual men and heterosexual men for intervals ranging from 33 milliseconds to 10 seconds. When given 100 milliseconds or more to view a face, participants correctly identified sexual orientation nearly 70% of the time. Volunteers were less accurate at shorter durations, and their accuracy did not get better at durations beyond 100 milliseconds, the team reports in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. "What is most interesting is that increased exposure time did not improve the results," says Ambady.
Romantic attraction likely works just as fast, notes psychologist Paul Eastwick of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. "If people make accurate judgments about sexually relevant aspects of a person this quickly," he says, "you have to stop and wonder how we size up one another's romantic potential in a matter of milliseconds."
Psychologist David Kenny of the University of Connecticut, Storrs, says the finding demonstrates the brain's remarkable ability to make fast yet accurate appraisals. Still, he notes that with some of the images, accuracy regularly fell below 50%. It's possible that some faces are just hard to read.
Is there an interactive version for us to play?
I always think those things are fun.
Especially one’s where you have to guess whether the person is Republican or Democrat.
Waiting for the inevitable pics...
How do you remove vomit from a monitor?
Unless the study controlled for hairstyle and jewelry, it’s useless for anything other than propaganda.
Wait! Wait! I know this one!
Gay.
Right? Am I right?!!
From the keyboard would be worse.
The stories in Gary Aldrich’s book would make one think so.
Uhhhhhhhhh . . . that comment stems from how much research of what type?
The study was a solid one with good design.
Therefore, the assertion I’m responding to seems to be from . . . what . . . wholesale bias; inexperience succeeding at such assessments . . . what?
Probalby not as bad as this, though!
About ervrytimr I see or Hear “Shillary” ... yeah it is!
Between the Scroll Lock and Pause/Break keys. Can’t think of a better place for a cigarette.
The carpet muncher’s dental work isn’t the best. The two capped teeth don’t quite match the color of the other teeth and the front uncapped tooth is filed unequally. Probably should have worked on the lower front teeth as well to avoid this upper work.
Huma!!!!!
She has some gum loss. Perhaps she should see a periodontist.
I'm not so sure about that. Let's ask an expert...
Did you ever notice how much Leona Helmsely looked like Liberace...but just not nearly as feminine?
The human brain is an extremely complex instrument. Over a lifetime, people learn a great deal about just about everything. Some of these things can be enumerated into rules and opinions—others cannot, but just manifest themselves as “gut feelings”. This phenomenon has been well documented, especially in the case of police and fireman who (correctly) know something is wrong even if the facts aren’t yet apparent. In many cases, what your gut tells you turns out to be right—the problem is you often can’t say why. Of course, in this study, they appear to have helped things along by telling the subjects what characteristic they were trying to discriminate.
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