Why Women Are Better than Men at Recognizing Faces

When women were shown images of unfamiliar people, eye-tracking technology showed that they fixed upon the faces 10% to 40% more times than men did, suggesting that women’s ability to gather more visual information is what gives them a better memory for faces, says a team from McMaster University in Canada led by Jennifer J. Heisz. In learning new faces, females seem more likely to direct their gaze to highly informative regions, such as the eyes. Past studies have shown that women typically perform better than men in facial-recognition tests.