Story highlights A new study says glasses can obscure identity if we look at someone we don't know

This was especially pronounced in side-by-side photos of people who did and didn't wear glasses

(CNN) If you weren't a personal friend of either Clark Kent or Superman, you could be tricked by his glasses like everyone else in Metropolis.

Even the smallest change to someone's facial appearance, like wearing glasses, can shift our ability to identify them if we don't know them, according to a new study

This could have an impact as facial recognition, from software to passports, becomes a topic of interest for protecting identity.

Researchers at the University of York showed 59 study participants side-by-side images and asked them to determine whether each depicted the same person. The images included three categories: people wearing glasses, people not wearing glasses or an image of someone wearing glasses paired with one that wasn't.

Rather than showing them single images and asking for an identification to test their memory, the researchers wanted to test the participants' visual comparison abilities by presenting the side-by-sides. The participants were not under time constraints while viewing the images.

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