According to the scientists from the University of New South Wales in Australia, we are really poor at picking photographs that actually are ours or look like us because we can’t make a good decision when the subject is actually none other than ‘us’. To derive this conclusion, the researchers conducted a study in which 130 undergraduate students were asked to examine ten photos of them and rank them on the basis of how accurate they were in terms of likeness. To provide an ‘organic’ sense of the students’ appearances the students were asked to record a webcam video of them, simultaneously.

After this, sixteen new participants were brought in. None of them knew the original set of 130 students. These 16 students were asked to first examine the videos and then rank the Facebook selfies in order of likeness. On the other hand, another group of 73 students (unknown to the original group of 130 students) completed an “online face matching test” using the undergraduates’ pictures. And last but not the least the photographs of the students were analysed by a facial recognition test.

The results were quite interesting as the images selected by strangers were seven percent more accurate representations than the ones selected by the original group. That is, strangers were better equipped in deciding what the students actually looked like. On this result, lead study researcher Dr. David White commented: “Existing memory representations interfere with our ability to choose images that are good representations or faithfully depict our current appearance.”

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Author:Technology Blog