Sex Differences in Gender Face Recognition Report

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Abstract

Face recognition to determine gender is something everybody does at the first sight. However, the gender determined by face recognition is not always correct. There is a very simple explanation for the same. All of us have some preconceived notions about the facial appearance of a particular gender and this preconceived notion is not always correct. But the question is whether different sexes have a difference in determining gender by face recognition. To answer this, a quasi-quantitative experiment was done and analyzed. The findings are presented in this paper. It was found that there is no significant difference in the way different sexes determined gender by face recognition. Both men and women were almost identical in either making a mistake or choosing correctly the gender of an individual by recognizing his/her face.

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Introduction

While sex is a biological attribute gender is a social creation. This is the reason that explains while there are almost infinite varieties of sex but only three varieties of gender. It should be correct to explain this at this point itself, because to most of us sex and gender are almost identical which is not true. We know of three sexes – male, female and transgender. But could it be possible? Simply not; because “Nature does not present itself to us with sharp contours”. Therefore, while it is very rare to find personalities that demonstrate pure male and female attributes; if one examines closely he/she will find that in one’s personality there is a varying degree of male and female attributes.

Gender is the creation of society. Society has assigned different attributes to different sexes like a soft character is assigned to females while a rough character is assigned to males. So deeply ingrained is the notion of gender in our brains that when we meet someone what comes to our mind is whether the person is a male or a female. Also, a certain facial expression is assigned to males and females. If someone finds a mismatch between his / her preconceive facial expression and sex; it is taken by surprise and most of the time is not taken well. That is we like a man to look like a man and a woman to look like a woman. What if we do not know the sex of a person and we are shown his / her face. We are likely to make a mistake, whenever there is a clear mismatch. Whether or different sexes will make mistakes to a different extent is what has been examined in this paper.

Method & Design

Forty participants were selected through friends and family for this experiment. They were an opportunity sample and were asked to experiment at my home throughout the week. Twenty males and Twenty females were selected, their ages ranged from 18-56. The mean age for the males was 47.75 and for females, it was 41.00 with a standard deviation of 14.38 for males and 7.13 for the females.

A quasi-experimental design was used in this experiment. The independent variable was the sex (male vs female) and the dependent variable was the accuracy in gender recognition. All the participants were explained that they will be shown eighteen pictures and they have to mark the picture on a scale of 1 to 9 – ‘1’ being female and ‘9’ being male. Participants were randomly asked to accompany me into a room where the experiment was carried out.

Materials & Procedure

A rating sheet was used (appendices 1) that contained a table showing the accuracy rating from 1= female 3= Probably female 5= Not sure 7= probably male 9=defiantly male. The participant’s instructions were to rate the pictures that they were shown according to whether they thought they were male or female.

Participants were informed that they were going to be taking part in a gender face recognition experiment. First, they were assigned into two groups the male group and the female group. They were then told that they would each be taken into a room where the experiment would take place. One by one the participants were taken to the experiment room, once there they were given an accuracy rating sheet and told that in a few minutes they would be shown several slides on the computer which contained pictures of faces. They were to write their age and gender on the accuracy sheet and as the slides are shown to circle the accuracy number that they saw fit. Once they had been shown all 18 slides they were then told to go into the other room and send the next person in. None of the participants were aware that all the faces shown on the slides were female. Once all participants had completed the experiment I went back into the room and told them all that they were all female faces.

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Results & Discussion

In these photos, there were 9 males and 9 females and therefore, the correct score should have been 90. However, for all the participants the score was more than 90. This means the photos were not confirming what the participants felt is a male or a female. The total score for both the groups’ i.e. male group and the female group was on the higher side. This means the photos were more manlike. The results are presented below:

Male Group:

Number of participants n1 = 20

Mean score for the group x = 119.5

Standard deviation s1 = 21.2

Female Group:

Number of participants n2 = 20

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Mean score for the group y = 111.2

Standard deviation s2 = 17.2

To examine whether the findings of the two groups are significantly different or not; a t-test was conducted at a 5% significance level (Kreyszig 1993).

Degree of freedom df = n1 + n2 – 2 = 20 +20 -2 = 38

Test statistics

Test statistics 

tcritical = t0.025, 38 = 2.02

As these < critical; therefore, the difference between the two means are not significant and therefore, it can be concluded that both the means are statistically identical.

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So what explains the identical pattern in gender face recognition by the two sexes? The two sexes – male and females are biologically different but then how they are identical when it comes to gender face recognition. This is because the concept of gender is not a biological concept rather it is a concept created by society. In the process of evolution, society has evolved a set of attributes to the two genders. All weak, soft, and subtle attributes are assigned to the gender “woman” and all the strong, hard and robust attributes are assigned to the gender “man”. These are now as good as universally accepted norms. Practically everybody has in his / her subconscious mind that a manlike face and a womanlike face or a masculine face and a feminine face and these faces are identical in the subconscious mind of a male and a female. It can be said with certainty that while participating in the gender face recognition all the participants have looked at the photograph being shown, compared it with the masculine/feminine face in his/her mind, and assigned a gender to the face based on the results of this comparison. Because of this deeply rooted bias or preconceived notion about the masculine/feminine faces; which is identical for both the faces the result was such that both the sexes have fared identical in the gender face recognition experiment.

Conclusions

From the results of this experiment, it can be concluded that there is no statistical difference in gender face recognition by both sexes. From this, it can be inferred that both the sexes are equally likely to take right or wrong decisions about gender by looking at the face. This confirms the theory that both the sexes have an identical preconceived notion about the facial expression of genders.

References

Kreyszig E. Advanced Engineering Mathematics. 7th Edition 1993. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Singapore. p1240 -1241.

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"Sex Differences in Gender Face Recognition." IvyPanda, 20 Oct. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/sex-differences-in-gender-face-recognition/.

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IvyPanda. (2021) 'Sex Differences in Gender Face Recognition'. 20 October.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "Sex Differences in Gender Face Recognition." October 20, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sex-differences-in-gender-face-recognition/.

1. IvyPanda. "Sex Differences in Gender Face Recognition." October 20, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sex-differences-in-gender-face-recognition/.


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IvyPanda. "Sex Differences in Gender Face Recognition." October 20, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sex-differences-in-gender-face-recognition/.

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