All In The Mind

Sexuality and Faces - How does our "Gaydar" work ?Most of us think we're pretty good at guessing when somebody's gay or straight, but what signals are we using to make our decision, and how often are we right ? Psychologists at Queen Mary University of London are, for the first time, trying to isolate the individual signals and patterns in somebody's face, in order to work out exactly what motivates us to make a snap decision about sexuality. Using cutting edge computer imagery, researchers have found a way of transferring male facial expressions onto female faces and vice versa, which means they can work out exactly how our "gaydar" works. Dr Qazi Rahman, assistant professor in Cognitive Biology, and PHd student, William Jolly, are hoping that their research will challenge stereotypes and prejudice by increasing awareness of how quickly, and often inaccurately, people classify each other. The Me Generation Professor Jean Twenge from San Diego State University in California has already coined the phrase, "Ge