Study shows how bias can influence people estimating the ages of other people

A trio of researchers from the University of New South Wales and Western Sydney University has discovered some of the factors involved when people make errors in estimating the ages of other people. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Colin Clifford, Tamara Watson and David White describe their study involving people estimating the ages of people shown in passport photos, and what they found.

The researchers note that reliably estimating age is an important social skill—we use such information to modify how we interact with others. We might be more respectful of someone older, for example, or more lenient with someone we perceive as younger. But just how accurate are we in guessing how old someone is? That was what Clifford, Watson and White sought to find out.

To learn more about how accurate people are in estimating age, the researchers obtained over 4000 passport photos of people between the ages of seven and 70 from the Australian Passport Office. They enlisted the assistance of 80 volunteers who were divided into two groups—those between the ages of 18 and 25 and those between the ages of 34 to 59. Each volunteer was asked to look at a given photo and then to estimate the person’s age. Some of the photos were pixilated to block out certain characteristics.

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