What your keystrokes reveal about your gender

[rangerrebew]

What your keystrokes reveal about your gender

By Kimberly HickokFeb. 9, 2018 , 8:00 AM

Your webcam may know your face, but your keyboard knows your gender. Computer models can predict with 95.6% accuracy whether a man or woman is typing, according to a new study. To conduct the research, computer engineers installed keystroke-logging software onto the personal computers of 75 volunteers—36 men, 39 women—which monitored their daily computer use for 10 months.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/what-your-keystrokes-reveal-about-your-gender

[Polly Ticks]

Interesting, but I don't understand this statement:

The program isn’t capable of specifying whether a man or woman types those keys faster or more often—only that there is a difference.

How can you identify a difference, but not identify what that difference is?  Weird.

[Suppressed]

Interesting, but I don't understand this statement:

How can you identify a difference, but not identify what that difference is?  Weird.

@Polly Ticks

Think of it as a data-collection tool, but the analysis of the data was done by separate models (that knew which data corresponded to which typist).

At least, that's how I understand it.

[driftdiver]

Companies like google can tell who you are by how  you type, the sites you visit, the OS you are using, the language used and how you type.  Google can track how fast you type and what words you use, even when you aren't on google.

They probably know more about you, then you do.

[truth_seeker]

Companies like google can tell who you are by how  you type, the sites you visit, the OS you are using, the language used and how you type.  Google can track how fast you type and what words you use, even when you aren't on google.

They probably know more about you, then you do.

Hardly new. In the roaring 1950s explosion in modern consumer marketing, research, surveys, etc. were used (conducted manually--later using computers) to classify, categorize, study, group, PREDICT.

The important aspect is the PREDICT part, whereby it is hoped to learn how to reach and influence buyers.

(I seem to remember years ago when Chrysler Corp. needed a bailout. Apparently they had built cars they PREDICTED folks would buy, but they backed up unsold on huge lots.)