2024-07-19 17:20:54
The calendar and optical ages do not often match exactly. Asking others to estimate one’s own age often leads to funny or even unpleasant situations. (Symbolic image) © Irina Heß/Imago
We often have eight years off when we estimate people’s ages. An Australian study found the surprising reason for this.
“How old do you think you are?” – A lonely question, not only for men. If you often get the age wrong, you are not alone. Australian psychologists have found that we misjudge on average by about eight years. According to the result of a study, there are probably several reasons behind this phenomenon.
Approximate age: eight years on average
In the largest study of face perception to date, psychologists also examined the ability to correctly estimate age. They were published Study results in scientific journal Royal Society Open Science. As part of the study, 84 test subjects between the ages of 18 and 59 estimated the age of people based on 3,968 passport photos. The photographs showed the faces of children, men and women between the ages of seven and 70.
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On average, the test subjects were eight years out of date for each individual. The researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney saw the main reason for this as the passport photos that the subjects had previously seen. Test subjects judged a man to be older than he was if they had previously been shown a passport photo of an older man.
We tend to think of others as “middle aged”.
However, if the person in the photograph was the same age as the test subject, he or she was able to estimate their age well. So it’s not just the wrinkles on the face that affect our age estimate. The age of the person making the estimate also plays an important role. We usually think of people as “middle aged”. As part of their study, the psychologists also discovered that the age of younger faces is perceived as older and the age of older faces as younger.
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