Can Adults Be Trained to Better Recognize and Avoid Sick Faces?

Recent research indicates that adults can improve their ability to identify and avoid sick faces through targeted training. Building on previous studies demonstrating that children recognize signs of illness in faces, scientists from the University of Miami, James Madison University, and Duke University have explored whether adults can enhance this skill with practice. The study, published in the journal Vision, involved 133 participants who viewed images of individuals while healthy and sick from contagious illnesses like COVID-19, flu, strep throat, or cold. Participants were divided into two groups: one received brief training that included educational content about infectious diseases and practice with feedback, while the control group did not.

The results showed that although both groups initially performed similarly, the trained group improved slightly in their ability to avoid sick faces by about 5%, while the control group's performance remained unchanged. Interestingly, the training did not significantly boost explicit recognition of sick faces but influenced unconscious behaviors. Eye-tracking data revealed that trained participants adopted a more balanced gaze pattern, making more systematic comparisons between facial features and paying increased attention to areas such as the eyes and mouth—key regions associated with illness cues like drooping eyelids or relaxed facial muscles.

This research highlights potential practical applications, such as developing training programs for children and healthcare professionals to detect subtle signs of disease early. Ethical considerations have been addressed to ensure that such training aims to improve recognition accuracy without promoting hypervigilance or undue anxiety. The team is now expanding their work to include younger populations and cross-cultural studies, collaborating with researchers in China. The ongoing efforts aim to better understand individual differences, such as gender or immune status, that may influence sick face recognition.

Overall, this study suggests that with appropriate training, adults can enhance their ability to detect illness through facial cues, which could contribute to improved disease prevention strategies and public health efforts.