Face processing
Can people tell a hyper-realistic mask from a real face?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Almost nobody noticed that a face was actually a lifelike silicone mask, whether they saw it in a photo or sitting on a bench in front of them.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Experiments 1-2: one mask photo hidden among 19 real faces, followed by graded detection questions; Experiment 3: between-subjects field experiment with a live confederate (hyper-realistic mask, real face or obvious party mask) viewed at 5 m or 20 m, own- vs other-race
- N
- N=407 · 60 UK students (Experiment 1), 60 Japanese students (Experiment 2) and 407 passers-by in York and Kyoto (Experiment 3; 160 of them saw a hyper-realistic mask). The headline N is the field experiment.
- Population
- University students in York (UK) and Kyoto (Japan)
- Outcome
- Whether viewers mentioned a mask spontaneously or when prompted, forced-choice guesses of being in the mask condition, and picking the mask out of a photo array
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Key findings
Across all studies, only 2 of the 280 people who saw a hyper-realistic mask mentioned it spontaneously, and 3 more did so after prompting, all of them live viewers at the near distance. In Experiment 1 only 21.7% guessed they were in the mask group, and even when told a mask was present and shown all the photos, 30% missed it while most also flagged real faces as masks. In the field experiment, 42.5% of hyper-realistic-mask viewers guessed 'mask', between the 96.5% for obvious masks and 8.6% for real faces, so subtle cues had some effect, and closer viewing raised mask guesses only for the hyper-realistic mask. Other-race viewers guessed 'mask' more often even when the face was real, which points to a response bias rather than better detection.
Methodology
In two lab experiments, 60 UK and 60 Japanese students rated 20 face photos for age, trustworthiness, dominance and attractiveness; one of the photos was secretly a person wearing a hyper-realistic mask. Afterwards they answered increasingly pointed questions: what they thought of the faces, whether anything was unusual, whether they had been in a mask group, and finally which photo in an array was the mask. In a third experiment, 407 passers-by on two campuses rated a live confederate who wore a hyper-realistic mask, an obvious party mask or no mask, seen from 5 m or 20 m, and whose face was of their own or another race.
Limitations
Only a handful of commercial masks were tested, and all participants were young university students, so detection by trained staff such as border officers is untested. The closest viewing distance was 5 m, far from the 1-2 m of a passport check or a conversation, and viewers never saw the masked person talk or show strong expressions, which the authors suspect could give masks away. The own- versus other-race effects are hard to interpret because the fully crossed race comparison appears only in the field study, where race is confounded with how common each face type is on campus. Experiments 1 and 2 used a single mask among 19 real faces, so the low hit rates cannot be split cleanly into sensitivity and bias.
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