Are you gay? Apparently, a new study conducted by 2 US psychologists claims that "gaydar" can be backed up by science.

According to the study, certain people have the ability to "detect" the sexual orientation of an individual.

The study is entitled "The Roles of Featural and Configural Face Processing in Snap Judgments of Sexual Orientation" was conducted by Joshua Tabak and Vivian Zayas. It suggests that certain individuals have the ability to "unconsciously make gay and straight distinctions."

The authors of the study, Tabak and Zayas, asked 129 college students to try to identify the sexual orientations of 96 photos of both men and women.

The results of the study suggests that the participants were able to spot lesbians with 65% accuracy. It was actually easier for the participants to determine lesbians than gays. Even when the photos were upside down, participants were able to identify lesbians with 61% accuracy.

On the other hand, the result for identifying gay people is less accurate with only 57% accuracy. When the images were turned upside down, accuracy level fell down to 53%

The study was also able to pinpoint the reason why there's a difference in accuracy when determining the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian people. Based on the study, the difference in accuracy level is mainly due to a higher level of "false alarms" when determining gay from straight.

The time it took the participants to decide whether the orientation in the photo is gay or lesbian or straight is quite fast with only 50 milliseconds per photo.

However, the study also found out that not all individuals have a "gaydar." Since the study is limited to college students only, the authors of the study also suggest that there could be factors that affect the ability of a person to detect sexual orientation.

According to Tabak, age, culture,  and interaction with gay people could be factors that affect "gaydar" sense.

Here's the official abstract of the study:

"Research has shown that people are able to judge sexual orientation from faces with above-chance accuracy, but little is known about how these judgments are formed. Here, we investigated the importance of well-established face processing mechanisms in such judgments: featural processing (e.g., an eye) and configural processing (e.g., spatial distance between eyes). Participants judged sexual orientation from faces presented for 50 milliseconds either upright, which recruits both configural and featural processing, or upside-down, when configural processing is strongly impaired and featural processing remains relatively intact. Although participants judged women's and men's sexual orientation with above-chance accuracy for upright faces and for upside-down faces, accuracy for upside-down faces was significantly reduced. The reduced judgment accuracy for upside-down faces indicates that configural face processing significantly contributes to accurate snap judgments of sexual orientation."