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Background

I've heard from many people working in tourism or similar industries that, white Australians can be recognized as Australian solely by their facial features. Being Australian myself I've heard variants of the claim quite often and lean towards the claim being at least, a possibility.

While it's true that people tend to see patterns when there are none or incorrectly attribute, why they correctly recognize something. I don't necessarily think that is the case here. Australians don't tend to dress in a distinguishing way when overseas, and people have recognized them before hearing them speak. Given the extent to which I hear this claim made, I can't completely dismiss it.

Examples of claims

This article from an Australian newspaper in 1943 interviews an artist who when asked if Australians have a racial type, says he thinks that it was generally possible to distinguish an Australian [from other Caucasians] due to differences in the nose and differences in the jaw.

Googling for terms like "look Australian" returns examples of the claims strewn around the internet, such as this forum thread and this blog.

Also of note is the art project to show the average face of Sydney, of which the following quote is relevant:

In many cases, however, the likeness is so strong that it's possible to guess the nationality just by taking a cursory glance at the photo.

Reasons for thinking it may be possible

I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to biology, although there are a few reasons I think this might be possible. The (relatively) small gene pool from when Australia was colonized could have led to features from a small group being inherited in a large population.

There seems to be some evidence that environment can play a large role in influencing genetics more so than ethnicity. I can't find the paper investigating that, although will update this question if I am able to.

It seems possible to me that facial features belonging to the original colonists could have spread through subsequent populations, becoming a defining characteristic for some Australians.

I don't think most immigrants are relevant to this question as they will not have inherited distinguishing features (if they exist), nor will they or their parents/grandparents have been able to be influenced by the environment - if that is even a relevant factor.

So...

Do a significant number of white Australians, excluding 1st or 2nd generation immigrants, have distinct facial features unique or generally only found in Australia?

Is it reasonable that some white Australians could be recognized as Australian, going only by facial features?

Community
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Sonny Ordell
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  • Why the downvote? How can I improve the question? – Sonny Ordell Mar 04 '12 at 21:48
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    Our brains are incredibly good at two things. 1) Seeing patterns, even when there is none 2) recording hits and discarding misses. It is very likely that the people who told you that had either recognized Aussies from other features (e.g. wearing flip flops in the middle of winter :P) or that they just recalled the times when they recognized Australians just by their looks, conveniently forgetting the times when they did not. – nico Mar 06 '12 at 12:02
  • @nico that may be likely, although as an Australian who spent an inordinate amount of time overseas, I do feel like I can sometimes tell Australians by face alone. Aussies don't tend to dress like the cliche when overseas, so dress isn't really a distinguishing factor. – Sonny Ordell Mar 06 '12 at 15:44
  • I don't understand the downvotes. I'm asking if it is possible or not. Is the question really so ridiculous that it doesn't merit an answer? – Sonny Ordell Mar 07 '12 at 00:53
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    I actually upvoted it, I think it is a good question, too bad there is no Anthropology SE :D. – nico Mar 07 '12 at 07:53
  • @nico thanks, I just get miffed when downvoters downvote without giving a reason. – Sonny Ordell Mar 09 '12 at 05:33
  • "I do feel like I can sometimes tell Australians by face alone" -- and you can also sometimes tell what way up a coin is before seeing it. 50% of the time, in fact. Which is why the only way to answer the question is a study of the actual task, which is to measure whether anyone can distinguish between (for example) white Australians and white New Zealanders better than 50/50 :-) If we knew whether it was true or not, we could worry about whether it's reasonable and what facial features are involved. – Steve Jessop Jun 10 '15 at 03:01
  • @Steve, my claim on being able to identify some Australians by face alone is nothing like being able to correctly guess the side of a coinflip. I absolutely agree a study would be needed to see if there is anything to my question, however I thought a question checking the plausibility of my claim was in order first. – Sonny Ordell Jul 13 '15 at 23:32
  • @SonnyOrdell: sorry, but if you only get it right 50% of the time when asked to state the nationalities of an evenly-mixed group of Antipodeans, then yes it is exactly like guessing a coinflip. So make sure that's not what's happening. Which is why I say that "sometimes" getting it right is worthless, that just means you don't always get it wrong. To protect yourself from the natural human tendency to perceive a pattern where none exists, you should establish that you get it right better than guessing. – Steve Jessop Jul 13 '15 at 23:37
  • @SteveJessop Your argument is based on a flawed assumption, that I only get it right 50% of the time. Try 90%. Note, I'm not saying I can identify all Australians by facial features, only those that I perceive to have facial features distinct to Australians. – Sonny Ordell Jul 13 '15 at 23:41
  • I didn't assume anything, I merely said that "sometimes" isn't good enough. Most people would not describe 90% as "sometimes", but if that's what you meant then that's great. I'm not saying you can't do it, I'm saying that (until just now) you'd given no indication that there's any real phenomenon here. But fine, if 90% of Australians are recognisable to you as such because you perceive distinctive features, and the other 10% aren't because you don't, from a "big enough" sample, then that's an extremely strong result. – Steve Jessop Jul 13 '15 at 23:44
  • @SteveJessop fair enough, my apologies. That is a result of my trying to make the question more conservative so that it could even be asked on Skeptics.SE, although the mods at the time we rather difficult to work with so it ended up on here. When I worked in the tourism industry, it was pretty common to be able to spot Australians, something my colleagues do frequently also. They don't tend to be wearing anything that would signify Australian nationality and it is often before they speak. – Sonny Ordell Jul 14 '15 at 00:01
  • I'm surprised this question has so many up-votes. The sources cited are forums, bad journalism, and an art project. The reason you might think there is a difference seems purely cultural. Even the studies cited below in answers have no empirical data, or are purely hypothetical, and the facelab haven't published anything on this. This is a very subjective question and I am going to open a close vote. – James Jul 01 '16 at 03:54
  • Sun exposure - Lots of it over years make people look distinctive. – Polypipe Wrangler Jul 05 '20 at 05:56

2 Answers2

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Yes, it is possible (on some average basis, i.e. with chance better than random).

Take a look at average women faces from 41 different countries (AFAIK created with Face Research software; sadly no picture for Australia). Clearly, even from small and nearby European countries you can spot differences (which work on the average). I guess the case of Austriala vs other countries isn't an exception. Similar face averages are also on the project Face of Tomorrow.

However, when dealing with a single subjects it it may be not a reliable method to tell of his/her nationality or country of origin, as:

  • even within an relatively isolated group there is variance in genotype and phenotype,
  • people do move (especially now) and do mix (so unless you are comparing isolated islands you should't expect to have homogenous genotype).

Moreover, when identifying a person we may (even subconsciously) look at different features (including clothes, accent, behaviour, context, ...).

Piotr Migdal
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    As much as I like that "average face" link, it only remains an exercise in style. Obviously averaging different faces will give different results. What you would have to do to make it meaningful is getting different subset of faces from the same country and show that all the subset give similar results (I guess we could call that face bootstrapping). Then, as a negative control, take various faces from different countries and show that those characteristics do not show up anymore. – nico Mar 08 '12 at 20:53
  • @nico I am hoping that someone may explain why or why not what I propose in my question would be possible, although average a decent sample size and looking for patterns would also give a good indication. – Sonny Ordell Mar 09 '12 at 05:39
  • @nico I agree with your scrutiny, as the result is not cross-validated. However, it is not hard to design a test when people see two faces (single, not averaged) and two countries (and their task is to match them). I bet that even for nearby countries (e.g. Germany and France) one can guess with >50%. – Piotr Migdal Mar 09 '12 at 08:00
  • @Piotr Migdal: sure, that would also be another very good way to do it. – nico Mar 09 '12 at 08:29
  • I think this answer deals with the general case of recognizing someone by their nationality and not Australia specifically. I think that Australia is a special case as most people would not believe white Australians could have a distinct look, as they simply look white. – Sonny Ordell Mar 09 '12 at 13:49
  • @SonnyOrdell Yes, it is a general case and here is nothing special about Australians. Perhaps there is something special about Caucasian Australians but I doubt. – Piotr Migdal Mar 09 '12 at 14:40
  • @piotr but that is the question I am asking is about, if there is something special about white Australians. Your answer should be specific to that, not a general case. – Sonny Ordell Mar 09 '12 at 16:50
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It seems unlikely, but it's possible. The mechanisms that might occur (that I can think of) are:

1) if the Australians had some rare genetic traits that became more common in the australian gene pool than in the UK gene pool, it is possible. This is what happened with eastern Asia and the Y chromosome, which something like 40% from a single individual.

For this to be the case, it would be necessary that: Australia's gene pool must be isolated - very little immigration to the company and mixing with other gene pools. (i think not- what do you say?)

2) the diet of Australians caused their general body or face to be distinctive. As there is a lot of fast food in Australia now (and obesity) I'm guessing that this is simply not the case, at least compared to the UK and US.

Since there is no direct study (that I can find) all we can go on is anecdotal thought experiment.

As far as cognitive bias goes, I'm Asian American and I've heard many many (maybe most Asians say that they can tell one nationality vs another just by appearance).

Whenever I have tested myself or others I have not found anyone who can tell that i am 100% Japanese genetically. This is probably because diet in the midwest where i grew up was so corn rich and I've been mistaken for nearly everything, including Latino backgrounds. Most people think I'm Filipino, which is great except that I am not :)

Even when I ask Asians to look at other Asians and guess, it seems pretty rare that one can be consistently correct. There has been a lot of gene migration between countries there, even though the national groups are much much older than Australia. This is why I really doubt that Australians have been genetically isolated long enough or strongly enough for this to really be likely.

It would be pretty simple to get a bunch of pictures together, say 100, and test this if you really want to know.

Daniel Standage
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shigeta
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  • Do you know about alllooksame.com? – Thomas Ingalls Mar 11 '12 at 14:18
  • ha - good one! I hope I wasn't trying to subliminally prove a point, but for faces I scored 6/16. the average is 7. – shigeta Mar 12 '12 at 22:55
  • Could you maybe expand on point 1 and 2 showing that what you say is possible? There is no direct study with Australians but there should be for your underlying points? – Sonny Ordell Mar 14 '12 at 03:00
  • RE Australia's gene pool being isolated, it surely was at the formation of the country and likely stayed so for many years, perhaps this could have had an effect? – Sonny Ordell Mar 15 '12 at 06:05