New Study Suggests Superman's Disguise Of Wearing Glasses Could Work

09/01/2016 12:38 am EDT

Never underestimate the power of Clark Kent's glasses.

A new study at the University of York indicates that if you don't personally know someone, it's difficult to tell them apart from other similar-looking people if they make subtle changes to their appearance. The thesis was proven when 59 people were showed side-by-side photographs and were less able to tell whether two people were the same individual or not when -- you guessed it -- one of the photos showed a person wearing glasses.

Per CNN, the photographs provided to study participants were from three categories: people wearing glasses, people not wearing glasses or an image of someone wearing glasses paired with one that wasn't. Pressure shouldn't have played a role, since there were no time constraints.

Provided the two photographs had consistency of wearing glasses or not, participants could identify correctly whether the pair were the same person or not 80% of the time. That dropped to 74% when only one of the photos included glasses -- and while that might not seem major, it's a statistically-significant amount, and it could have significant implications for things like airport security.

"A 6% drop in performance may not sound like much, but if you consider the number of people who go through passport control at Atlanta International airport every year -- over 100 million last year -- a 6% drop in accuracy equates to 6 million misidentifications," said Kay Ritchie, co-author of the study from the University of York's psychology department. "We hope this work can be used to inform future policies on face identification, particularly given the discrepancy between different forms of photo ID when it comes to wearing glasses."

"While we may still find it hard to believe that the inhabitants of Metropolis are unable to match Clark Kent with the numerous appearances of Superman in newspapers and on television, we can at least understand why Kent has chosen glasses as his aid to anonymity," says the study.

Of course, as pictured above, it's not as though it's just the glasses that have obscured Clark Kent's identity in most -- especially most contemporary -- versions of the story. Clark slouches, speaks with a different voice, wears baggy clothing, styles his hair differently, and sometimes borrows tricks from The Flash, vibrating his body to alter his voice or make it harder to get a clear photograph of his face.

That said, even in the context of the study, Clark's close friends should see right through the facade. That's kind of inexcusable. So for the purpose of rounding this out on a suitably light note, here's that amazing scene from Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, where a time-traveling villain asks Lois just how incredibly stupid she is for never having noticed that the person she's closest to was hiding a secret identity as Superman:

...there, that made you feel like we weren't taking all this too terribly seriously, didn't it?

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