Santa impersonators beware. Scientists have created a Santa tracking machine and used it to prove what children have been telling adults for generations – that Santa has a unique face that clearly sets him apart from other elderly bearded men.
Previous research has suggested that children as young as three can identify Santa Claus based on his distinctive appearance.
“Santa Claus or Father Christmas is obviously a very recognizable person, but we wondered if it was about his clothing, his beard or his face?” says Dr Thomas Wright, a clinical geneticist at the University of Manchester, who led the research. “Until now, no one has systematically and scientifically questioned the modern face of Father Christmas.”
To investigate, Wright and his colleagues trained a deep facial recognition algorithm—similar to the facial ID software used to unlock smartphones or identify people in digital photo libraries—on several images of Santa pulled from the Internet. has been collected. They then used the software to examine further images of Santa Claus, as well as other grown men and elderly men with beards.
“The most important thing is that it [algorithm] just look at the features. It does not care what the individual is wearing or what colors are in the photo. We wanted to know, does Father Christmas have a facial phenotype that can be distinguished from other grown men or other elderly bearded men?” said Wright.
The research, published in the journal Visionfound that Santa’s face is distinguishable from those other men – although whether internet depictions of Santa are an accurate depiction of the actual magical resident of the North Pole, only Rudolph and his friends can say.
Their tool also did not categorize any images of Saint Nicholas, an early Christian bishop from the Middle East, as Santa Claus whose secret gift-giving habit is thought to have inspired modern ideas about Father Christmas. It also did not classify Walter Clement Shieldsan early 20th-century Alaskan man recently proposed as a prototype for Santa Claus, even though he also delivered presents by reindeer sleigh.
Wright wants to investigate whether related festive characters, such as Papa Noël, Tomte, Julenissen, Ded Moroz, Sinterklaas and Los Reyes Magos, might pass the test, as well as devoted Santa impersonators who attend the annual World Santa Congress.
The tool could also be developed to provide a Santa “lookalike score,” rather than simply classifying individuals as “Santa” “adult man” or “elderly bearded man,” Wright suggested.
It would also be interesting to investigate whether other folklore characters, such as the Tooth Fairy, Robin Hood and Tom Thumb, have different faces, he added.
