Scientists have found that women are more likely to recognise people than men - possibly because they are more interested in reading emotion in other faces.
In a study of 120 people, women were five percent more successful at identifying faces than the men.
All the subjects were shown close-up photographs of anonymous faces for 20 seconds and asked to memorise them.
They were then asked to identify the same faces - which had ears, hair and obvious blemishes removed - after they had been interspersed among 30 to 50 other faces.
Researchers say women may have better genetic programming to recognise faces because they need to recognise and provide for their children.
Jennifer Steeves, a psychologist who led the study, said: 'There is a small but significant difference in how reliably and how quickly men and women can recognise faces. Women just seem to be more efficient at it than men.
'It may be that they are programmed to study faces better because of the need to recognise the needs of their offspring.'
However apparently not all women are good at recognising faces.
In the blockbuster film, The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep's magazine boss, Miranda Priestly, has to rely on her assistant to brief her on the identity of each person she was about to encounter at a social function.
Meryl Streep's character Miranda Priestly has to rely on her assistant to brief her on the identity of everyone she meets at social functions in movie The Devil Wears Prada
Scientists who carried out the research say the reason for the disparity in the figures may lie in the way each sex analyses a face.
They found that while women performed better than men, gay men and left-handed men performed better than other men.
They say women and gay men may use both hemispheres of their brains to recognise faces and commit them to memory while straight men use just one side.
Psychologists believe women and gay men are more interested in reading emotion and personality traits from the faces of other people.
Saffron Ellidge, a 'face reader' from London who helps vet job candidates for employers, said the study, carried out by York University in Toronto, matches her findings.
She said: 'In my work I have observed that the people with the worst facial recognition skills are what you would call alpha males.
'They tend to be most absorbed in their own emotions, whereas those who want to gain rapport with others are better at it.'
She said: 'Women do take in more from people's faces because they are more interested than men.'
The secrets of how we recognise a human face is still a mystery and one that so far continues to defeat the best technology.
A computerised method of face recognition called face-mapping has been devised to identify people by measuring the distance between their features.
But scientists who advise police on identity parades say face-mapping method is not 100 percent accurate and can be unreliable.
There is a little-known medical condition called prosopagnosia - also known as face blindness - where patients cannot recognise the faces of other people, even those very close to them.
It is estimated there are many as 1.5million sufferers in Britain with varying forms of the condition though many people will not realise they are sufferers.
The condition, which can be present from birth or brought on by head injury, leads to an interruption in the brain works during facial recognition.
This means sufferers are able to conduct a normal conversation with somebody, but will fail to recognise that same person's face just a few minutes later.
They come to rely on other 'clues' such as clothes, voice pitch, mannerisms and whether or not somebody wears glasses to recognise them. ( dailymail.co.uk )
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