This psychologist’s “gaydar” rearch mak unfortable. That’s the pot. - Vox

Contents:

• 'I WAS SHOCKED WAS SO EASY': ​MEET THE PROFSOR WHO SAYS FACIAL REGNN ​​N TELL IF YOU'RE GAY
• ROW OVER AI THAT 'INTIFI GAY FAC'
• THIS PSYCHOLOGIST’S “GAYDAR” REARCH MAK UNFORTABLE. THAT’S THE POT.
• THE FAMO AI GAYDAR STUDY WAS REPEATED – AND, NO, N'T TELL IF YOU'RE STRAIGHT OR NOT JT OM YOUR FACE
• FACIAL HTS SHARPEN PEOPLE'S 'GAYDAR'
• GAYDAR: VISUAL TECTN OF SEXUAL ORIENTATN AMONG GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN
• REVIEWSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIL ASPECTS OF GAY INTY VELOPMENT
• SEXUAL ORIENTATN INTY DEVELOPMENT MILTON AMONG LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND QUEER PEOPLE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS
• WHY STANFORD REARCHERS TRIED TO CREATE A ‘GAYDAR’ MACHE

'I WAS SHOCKED WAS SO EASY': ​MEET THE PROFSOR WHO SAYS FACIAL REGNN ​​N TELL IF YOU'RE GAY

”In a paper published last year, Kosski and a Stanford puter scientist, Yilun Wang, reported that a mache-learng system was able to distguish between photos of gay and straight people wh a high gree of accuracy.

ROW OVER AI THAT 'INTIFI GAY FAC'

His fdgs are nsistent wh the prenatal hormone theory of sexual orientatn, he says, which argu that the levels of androgens foet are exposed to the womb help terme whether people are straight or gay. Whout beg aware of , most people n accurately intify gay men by face aloneAlthough I've always wanted this particular superhuman power, I've never been very good at tectg other men's sexual orientatn. "Th, " the thors wrote, "by g photos of gay and straight dividuals that they themselv did not post, we were able to remove the fluence of self-prentatn and much of the potential selectn bias that may be prent photos om personal advertisements.

And even wh the more strgent ntrols, the participants were able to intify the gay fac at levels greater than chance—aga even on those trials where the fac were flickered on the screen for a mere 50 lisends.

THIS PSYCHOLOGIST’S “GAYDAR” REARCH MAK UNFORTABLE. THAT’S THE POT.

For example, when shown only the eye regn ("whout brows and cropped to the outer nthi so that not even "crow's-feet" were visible"), perceivers were amazgly still able to accurately intify a man as beg gay. "A man, ually homosexual, wh a distctly effete facial stcture wh some very specific featur; a strong jawle [sic] that lacks promence, space between the ey that rell people wh down syndrome [sic], and a slopg, long forehead. Image source, Stanford UniversyImage ptn, The study created pose fac judged most and least likely to belong to homosexualsA facial regnn experiment that claims to be able to distguish between gay and heterosexual people has sparked a row between s creators and two leadg LGBT rights Stanford Universy study claims s software regnis facial featur relatg to sexual orientatn that are not perceived by human work has been acced of beg "dangero" and "junk science" the scientists volved say the are "knee-jerk" reactns.

Details of the peer-reviewed project are due to be published the Journal of Personaly and Social jawsFor their study, the rearchers traed an algorhm g the photos of more than 14, 000 whe Amerins taken om a datg ed between one and five of each person's pictur and took people's sexualy as self-reported on the datg rearchers said the rultg software appeared to be able to distguish between gay and heterosexual men and women.

In one tt, when the algorhm was prented wh two photos where one picture was fely of a gay man and the other heterosexual, was able to terme which was which 81% of the women, the figure was 71%.

THE FAMO AI GAYDAR STUDY WAS REPEATED – AND, NO, N'T TELL IF YOU'RE STRAIGHT OR NOT JT OM YOUR FACE

"But their software did not perform as well other suatns, cludg a tt which was given photos of 70 gay men and 930 heterosexual asked to pick 100 men "most likely to be gay" missed 23 of s summary of the study, the Enomist - which was first to report the rearch - poted to several "limatns" cludg a ncentratn on whe Amerins and the e of datg se pictur, which were "likely to be particularly revealg of sexual orientatn".

"This rearch isn't science or news, but 's a scriptn of bety standards on datg s that ignor huge segments of the LGBTQ (lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer/qutng) muny, cludg people of lour, transgenr people, olr dividuals, and other LGBTQ people who don't want to post photos on datg s, " said Jim Halloran, chief digal officer of Glaad, a media-monorg body.

FACIAL HTS SHARPEN PEOPLE'S 'GAYDAR'

"The 'subtle' differenc uld be a nsequence of gay and straight people choosg to portray themselv systematilly different ways, rather than differenc facial appearance self, " said Prof Benedict Jon, who ns the Face Rearch Lab at the Universy of was also important, he said, for the technil tails of the analysis algorhm to be published to see if they stood up to rmed cricism. A smart person wh a puter and accs to the ter n judge sexual orientatn of anyone the world, or lns of people simultaneoly wh very ltle effort, which mak liv of homophob and opprsive regim jt a ty b more easy. Th, our rults showed that differenc facial morphology of homosexual and heterosexual men do not simply mirror variatn femy, and the stereotypic associatn of feme lookg men as homosexual may nfound judgments of sexual orientatn.

Unsurprisgly, that origal work kicked up a massive fs at the time, wh many skeptil that puters, which have zero knowledge or unrstandg of somethg as plex as sexualy, uld really predict whether someone was gay or straight om their fizzog. The Stanford eggheads behd that first rearch – Yilun Wang, a graduate stunt, and Michal Kosski, an associate profsor – even claimed that not only uld nral works ss out a person’s sexual orientatn, algorhms had an even better gaydar than humans.

“Moreover, this entire le of thought is premised on the ia that there is value to be gaed workg out why 'gay face' classifiers might work – value further scribg, fg and settg out the methodology for any tpot dictator or bigot wh a puter who might want to opprs queer people. People n judge wh surprisg accuracy whether someone is gay or straight — even when they're lookg at a black-and-whe photograph, cropped of hair and intifyg marks, and prented upsi fdgs om a Universy of Washgton study suggt people e a batn of clu om dividual facial featur and om the way those featur f together to make snap judgments about sexual orientatn, said rearcher Joshua Tabak, a graduate stunt psychology.

GAYDAR: VISUAL TECTN OF SEXUAL ORIENTATN AMONG GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN

But even upsi down, people are good at procsg dividual facial and his -thor exploed this quirk of the bra by prentg photographs of 111 gay men, 122 straight men, 87 gay women and 93 straight women to 129 stunt volunteers. That suggts both facial featur (which n be procsed upsi-down and right-si-up photos) and facial nfiguratn provi hts to orientatn, the rearchers report Wednday (May 16) the journal PLoS remas to be seen how or if people e "gaydar" real life, when they have more to go on than a glimpse of a photograph, Tabak said.

REVIEWSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIL ASPECTS OF GAY INTY VELOPMENT

The associatn of HIV/AIDS wh gay and bisexual men and the accurate belief that some people held that all gay and bisexual men were fected served to further stigmatize lbian, gay, and bisexual people. Dpe the persistence of stereotyp that portray lbian, gay, and bisexual people as disturbed, several s of rearch and clil experience have led all mastream medil and mental health anizatns this untry to nclu that the orientatns reprent normal forms of human experience. Helpful rpons of a therapist treatg an dividual who is troubled about her or his same sex attractns clu helpg that person actively pe wh social prejudic agast homosexualy, succsfully rolve issu associated wh and rultg om ternal nflicts, and actively lead a happy and satisfyg life.

The phrase “g out” is ed to refer to several aspects of lbian, gay, and bisexual persons’ experienc: self-awarens of same-sex attractns; the tellg of one or a few people about the attractns; wispread disclosure of same-sex attractns; and intifitn wh the lbian, gay, and bisexual muny. Th, is not surprisg that lbians and gay men who feel they mt nceal their sexual orientatn report more equent mental health ncerns than do lbians and gay men who are more open; they may even have more physil health problems.

Lbian, gay, and bisexual youth who do well spe strs—like all adolcents who do well spe strs—tend to be those who are socially petent, who have good problem-solvg skills, who have a sense of tonomy and purpose, and who look forward to the future. If they are a heterosexual relatnship, their experienc may be que siar to those of people who intify as heterosexual unls they choose to e out as bisexual; that se, they will likely face some of the same prejudice and discrimatn that lbian and gay dividuals enunter.

SEXUAL ORIENTATN INTY DEVELOPMENT MILTON AMONG LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND QUEER PEOPLE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS

The picture that emerg om this rearch shows that children of gay and lbian parents enjoy a social life that is typil of their age group terms of volvement wh peers, parents, fay members, and iends. In summary, social science has shown that the ncerns often raised about children of lbian and gay parents, ncerns that are generally ground prejudice agast and stereotyp about gay people, are unfound. When lbians, gay men, and bisexual people feel ee to make public their sexual orientatn, heterosexuals are given an opportuny to have personal ntact wh openly gay people and to perceive them as dividuals.

WHY STANFORD REARCHERS TRIED TO CREATE A ‘GAYDAR’ MACHE

It is argued that, orr to velop an effective theory of gay inty velopment, empiril rearch should foc upon the levels of analysis, acknowledgg that there is a dynamic terplay between them; the multiplicy of inty self (nsistg of sometim petg elements); and the motiv that unrp the nstctn, management and protectn of inty (prcipally self-teem, self-efficy, ntuy, posive distctivens and belonggns).

Frd theorized that homosexualy was a rult of problems that arise durg psychosexual velopment, such as boys beg overly attached to and intifyg wh their mother stead of their father, feelg tense stratn anxiety that leads boys to reject women bee they are “strated, ” and narcissistic self-obssn that leads boys to choose an object of attractn that rembl themselv (Lew, 1988). Psychoanalysts who followed Frd, cludg Sandor Rado, Irvg Bieber, and Charl Soris, took pathologil views regardg homosexualy and asserted that homosexualy uld be cured through psychoanalysis (Drcher, 2015). Bieber (1962, 1967, 1969) claimed that male homosexualy was ed by boys havg a posssive and overly volved mother, as well as a hostile or distant father; the dynamics led boys to bond wh their mother and prevented them om velopg their masculy, which led him to effemate homosexualy.