Facial Recognition Abilities of Men and Women Mini Lab Report PSYC 300 6383 Research Methods in Psychology (2188)

Facial Recognition Abilities of Men and Women Mini Lab Report PSYC 300 6383 Research Methods in Psychology (2188) Introduction It is widely believed that in the process of recognizing faces, women are far more astute in identifying previously seen faces. Not only is this believed, due to numerous studies with varying focuses, Herlitz and Lovén (2013) concluded women not only are more accurate, but also have expected advantages over men in facial recognition situations. In an effort to confirm this theory, an experiment was conducted using an equal number of women and men. Believing that women may be more detail oriented, this researcher believes that women will, at a much higher rate, recognize faces more consistently than men. Method This experiment used 20 men and 20 women who were, at the time of the exam, between the ages of 25-40 years old. These 40 individuals, one at a time, sat down at a computer to take an exam. The exam consisted of ten sets of faces, shown five at a time. The set of five faces was shown on screen for approximately five seconds before moving to the next page. This next page displayed a singular face on the screen accompanied by a question that asked the test taker if the current face was part of the group of five faces previously shown. This pattern was completed ten times. At the conclusion of the tenth question, each individual was given a score with zero being the lowest and ten being the highest. ..............................................continued...............................................