Study finds that masks make little difference to facial identification
Face masks only hinder facial recognition slightly more than sunglasses
2021-03-31
(Press-News.org) But the study also shows for the first time that performance may be improved by using super recognisers - people who are very skilled at recognising faces. It also reveals that masks do make recognising someone's emotions more difficult.
There are many questions surrounding face masks and the impact that masks will have on face identification. Can we recognise the faces of people who we know well if they are wearing a mask? And, relevant to policing and security scenarios or a supermarket ID check, can an unfamiliar face be recognized across images if it is masked? And how do masks impact our ability to recognize a person's emotions?
Dr Noyes is Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology and conducted the study, published by the Royal Society, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Greenwich, University of Reading, and University of Lincoln. A leading expert in the field, Dr Noyes was intrigued what the enforced wearing of masks due to COVID-19 would have on facial recognition.
The study consisted of three experiments which tested recognition of familiar faces, recognition of an unfamiliar face (comparing images, aka face matching), and emotion recognition. The researchers compared face recognition and emotion recognition for faces with no concealment, faces in masks, and faces in sunglasses - something far more commonplace than masks and often a matter of choice rather than necessity.
In the first experiment, participants were presented with pairs of famous faces, and were asked to decide if the images were of the same person or two different people.
"People are typically very good at identifying the faces of people they know well," says Dr Noyes. "However, we found that face masks reduced accuracy on this task. There was no difference in accuracy for faces in masks compared to faces in sunglasses. Accuracy on the familiar face recognition task remained high - around 90% - even for faces in masks.
"Face comparisons are much more difficult if the faces are unknown to the identifier, but it is this task which mimics what can happen in many security scenarios. In the unfamiliar face comparison task, both masks and sunglasses reduced identification accuracy. Masks impaired performance the most, but only a little more than sunglasses." This difference in recognition was at only around 3%.
A group of people who were known to be 'super recognisers' also took part in the task. Super recognisers have an exceptional natural ability for recognising a face, an ability that only 2% of the population have.
Super recognisers outperformed typical observers for unconcealed faces, faces in masks, and faces in sunglasses, showing that they still outperform typical observers even when looking at concealed faces. This study is the first to test the performance of super recognisers for faces in masks.
What about the recognition of a person's emotional expressions? Participants in the study viewed face images and were asked to decide which emotion had been displayed (see Fig 2).
"The effect of masks on emotion categorization was more complex than the results for the recognition task," Dr Noyes explains. "The emotions 'happiness', 'disgust' and 'surprise' were particularly difficult to recognise when the faces were in masks, but the recognition of the emotions 'anger' and 'fear' were impaired by both masks and sunglasses."
Dr Noyes continues, "The results of the study show that the lower half of the face is important for face identification and emotion recognition. It's not all in the eyes!"
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-03-31
Research conducted in U.S. national parks has focused largely on five iconic parks, with more than a third of academic papers focused on Yellowstone National Park, researchers from North Carolina State University found in a new analysis.
They also found that the number of publications per year increased during the 1990s and 2000s, but has dropped since 2013. The findings, published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice, were drawn from an analysis of nearly 7,000 published, peer-reviewed studies conducted at U.S. designated national parks since 1970.
"Looking at the data was a surprise and perhaps a wake-up call," said the study's lead author Jelena Vukomanovic, assistant professor of ...
2021-03-31
Forty million people living in the Kanto region of Japan, which includes Tokyo, may be able to blame a meandering ocean current for increasing hot and humid summers, according to an analysis conducted by an international team of researchers. The Kuroshio Current flows north, bringing warm water from the tropics to Japan's southern coast. Since 2017, however, it has meandered off its traditional path, turning south before continuing north again. Now, scientists have found that the "large meander" is responsible for the uptick in humidity and temperature.
The researchers, from Tohoku University in Japan and the University of Hawaii in the United States, published ...
2021-03-31
Osaka, Japan - Streptococcus pyogenes is one of the most important bacterial causes of human skin infections. If S. pyogenes invades deep into the tissue, it can cause life-threatening illnesses, such as sepsis and toxic shock. With its limited supply of carbohydrates, the skin is generally an effective barrier against infection and not a good surface for the survival of S. pyogenes. To survive successfully and invade deep into the tissue, bacteria must be able to find a source of nutrients and also evade the skin's immune defenses.
Now, an international ...
2021-03-31
Scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University jointly with Russian colleagues and researchers from Technical University of Denmark the first time have experimentally proved the existence of a two-dimensional (2D) curved flux of plasmonic quasiparticles, a plasmonic hook. A flat 2D hook is smaller than a 3D hook and possesses new properties, due to them, the researchers consider it as the most promising transmitter in high-speed microoptical circuits. The research findings are published in Applied Physics Letters (IF: 3,597; Q1) academic journal.
Electrons transmit information in existing calculation devices. The scientists suppose if electrons are replaced ...
2021-03-31
New research shows how drinking sugary beverages early in life may lead to impaired memory in adulthood.
The study, published today in Translational Psychiatry, also is the first to show how a specific change to the gut microbiome -- the bacteria and other microorganisms growing in the stomach and intestines -- can alter the function of a particular region of the brain.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sugar-sweetened beverages are a leading source of added sugars in Americans' diets. Nearly two-thirds of young people in the United States consume at least one sugary drink each day.
Neuroscientist Scott Kanoski, associate professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, has studied the link between ...
2021-03-31
LA JOLLA, CA--The faster-spreading B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 first detected in the United Kingdom, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, is quickly on its way to becoming the dominant variant of the virus in the United States, according to a study from scientists at Scripps Research and the COVID-19 test maker Helix.
The findings, which appear today in Cell, suggest that future COVID-19 case numbers and mortality rates in the United States will be higher than would have been otherwise. The analysis suggests that the variant, which has been detectable in an increasing proportion of SARS-CoV-2 samples, is 40-50 percent more transmissible than SARS-CoV-2 lineages that were previously dominant. Other studies have found ...
2021-03-31
Transport Network Companies (TNCs) not only increased road congestion but were also net substitute for public transit reducing PT ridership by almost 9%
The reduction in private vehicle ownership due to TNCs was insignificant
Research findings can provide valuable insights for transportation policy and regulation
Singapore, 31 March 2021 - Transport Network Companies (TNCs) or ridesharing companies have gained widespread popularity across much of the world, with more and more cities adopting the phenomenon. While ridesharing has been credited with being more environmentally friendly than taxis and private vehicles, is that really the case today or do they rather contribute to urban congestion?
Researchers at the Future Urban Mobility ...
2021-03-31
The younger generations are willing to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to sustainable living. In a study questioning both commitment to sustainable behaviors and willingness to trade better pay to work for a more sustainable-minded company, the surveyed young adults in Japan made their preferences clear.
The results were published on Jan. 31 in a special issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production focused on achieving the END ...
2021-03-31
Until now, researchers have believed that dark energy accounted for nearly 70 percent of the ever-accelerating, expanding universe.
For many years, this mechanism has been associated with the so-called cosmological constant, developed by Einstein in 1917, that refers to an unknown repellant cosmic power.
But because the cosmological constant--known as dark energy--cannot be measured directly, numerous researchers, including Einstein, have doubted its existence--without being able to suggest a viable alternative.
Until now. In a new study by researchers at the University of Copenhagen, a model was tested that replaces dark energy with a dark matter in the form of magnetic forces.
"If what we discovered is accurate, it would upend our ...
2021-03-31
Nagoya University researchers have identified a gene that plays a crucial role in regenerating neurons of African clawed frog tadpoles, which has an unusually high capacity for nerve regeneration. Their study, recently published in the journal iScience, showed that introducing the gene into mice with spinal cord injury (SCI) led to a partial recovery of their lost motor functions. These findings could contribute to the development of a new therapy for SCI, which often causes a person to experience permanent and severe physical and neurological disabilities.
Repairing spinal cord injuries in humans and other mammals is difficult, partly because ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Study finds that masks make little difference to facial identification
Face masks only hinder facial recognition slightly more than sunglasses
