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Study: Accurate Gaydar Is Nearly Instant


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A new study by Tufts University shows that people can identify others' sexual orientation after looking at them for just seconds.

According to ScienceBlogs.com, researchers Nalini Ambady and Nick Rule used college students in a test to accurately identify gay men based on 90 photos from dating websites. None of the men in the photos — half of whom were seeking male partners, the other half seeking females — had facial hair, jewelry, glasses, or other accessories.

Each photo was shown to 90 student volunteers for either 33 milliseconds, 50 milliseconds, 100 milliseconds, 6.5 seconds, or 10 seconds. With each snapshot, the students were able to identify a subject's sexual orientation with at least 50% accuracy, depending on the amount of time given. The most accurate time sequence was 50 milliseconds, with 62% projecting correctly. However, when students took their own amount of time to weigh the photos, the accuracy rate rose to 70%.

In an adjacent study, the researchers pulled photos from Facebook profiles of 133 men that were posted from friends or family, therefore being of a more neutral nature. In that trial, the accuracy rate was 54%, at 50 millisecond intervals.

The study's authors said the reason people may have keen gaydar is so heterosexual women can find a suitable mate and so that men can easily identify their competition.

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Reader Comments
  • Name: Jamie
    Date posted: 12/13/2009 8:28:11 AM
    Hometown: London

    Comment:

    I love the Advocate, but sometimes the articles make me sad. Where is the hard knife of the editor to cut out the dead wood!?!?

  • Name: eve
    Date posted: 12/13/2009 12:57:35 AM
    Hometown: L.A.

    Comment:

    You call this a study? I call it the failure of our educational system. If I toss a coin I can predict with 50% accuracy whether it be heads or tail. In other words, 50% accuracy between "gay" or "not gay" means: CANNOT PREDICT AT ALL beyond random probability rate if the sample composition is 50:50.

  • Name: Bryan
    Date posted: 12/11/2009 2:27:36 PM
    Hometown: San Francisco

    Comment:

    I agree Pete. If they want to show that there's a biological cue predisposing our judgement of others' sexual orientations, then they ought to have an *even* larger sample (say 1000+) look at photos of *completely naked people* without anything in their hair that could give away taste, remove body piercings, and siqualify people with visible tattoos. It would be even better if we could *film* the models walking, talking, running, etc. If this were to happen, I'd bet that the data would show chance alone as a mitigating factor.

  • Name: pete
    Date posted: 12/11/2009 2:30:46 AM
    Hometown: los angeles

    Comment:

    I'm kind of confused about this. I thought gaydar was about gays recognizing gays. So, maybe I'm out of touch and the definition has been expanded. Still, this study isn't really talking about the accuracy of gays recognizing gays. It's interesting that straights have a sense about it, but I wonder how much is predicated on stereotypical reinforcement despite the neutral presentation of the subjects. I'm more interested in the accuracy of gays recognizing gays and this apparently isn't done here.

  • Name: jjgg5
    Date posted: 12/10/2009 11:54:32 PM
    Hometown: loveland

    Comment:

    Anderson Cooper is too intelligent, articulate, attractive, humorous and likable not to be gay.

  • Name: BJas
    Date posted: 12/10/2009 11:23:06 PM
    Hometown: Eurdenville, KS

    Comment:

    Ahh, sloppy science journalism. Where would we be without it?

  • Name: Mike
    Date posted: 12/10/2009 9:11:21 PM
    Hometown: Dallas, Texas

    Comment:

    I pegged my boss as a sure bet lesbian ten years ago and I still would to this day, but she refuses to set herself free. I really pity her.

  • Name: Dan
    Date posted: 12/10/2009 7:41:09 PM
    Hometown: Austin, Texas

    Comment:

    This study does not suggest that "Accurate Gaydar is Nearly Instant" as the title says. The 62% and 70% accuracy rates occurred only after the results were corrected using an offbeat procedure called signal detection analysis. As group sizes diverge, generally accepted statistical corrections produce lower results, not higher ones. About half the pictures in the study were of gay men. So, the results should have declined when corrected for the smaller percentage of gay people in the real world. From the linked text, the accuracy rates were 57% and just 52%, so a sound correction would have rendered them pretty feeble. And the men's hairstyles apparently inflated the 57% rate in the first place. Even worse, the study didn't include pictures of bisexual men. In the real world, their presence would make gaydar rates even lower, because bisexuals are often misidentified as gay or straight. So if any conclusion is possible, it's that gaydar is abysmal, at least among straight people.

  • Name: Bryan
    Date posted: 12/10/2009 4:05:58 PM
    Hometown: San Francisco

    Comment:

    Thad: Though I'm septical of this study for other reasons, you really ought to read the synopsis at scienceblogs.com . The Advocate have actually butchered the data here. In each case, the subjects tested *higher* than 50%, and with a large sample size, if chance *alone* were at play then we'd expect exactly a 50% correct attribution. That is was larger than that (somehwere around 65% if I remember correctly, for those who saw the photos at the longest interval of time) tells us that there's **something** to this whole gaydar thingy. Now as others have correctly identified, this study was not cross cultural meaning that gaydar (though real) might be nothing more than a social cue, not biologically based. Furthermore, since these photos were taken from social networking sites (as well as some internet personals), I think in many cases individuals might be exacerbating the appearance of their orientation (possibly subconsciously) in order to maximize their dating pool.

  • Name: A
    Date posted: 12/10/2009 3:46:51 PM
    Hometown: Philadelphia

    Comment:

    I'd be interested to read a follow-up study that uses photos of women.

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