'These results show that men's judgement of faithfulness made from faces of unfamiliar women may contain a kernel of truth," said the study co-authored by Samantha Leivers from University of Western Australia, and colleagues.
The researchers showed men 17 pairs of images of unfamiliar women who were matched for age and ethnicity.
While one woman in the pair reported never cheating on her partner during a committed relationship, the other reported having cheated on at least two occasions.
Leivers asked men to judge which woman in each pair was likely to be more faithful.
The task was carried out twice with different groups of men.
Just by looking at women's faces, men's judgement on faithfulness was accurate 55 to 59 percent of the time.
She said the level of accuracy was "statistically significant but modest", ABC science reported.
"We do not expect them to be 100 percent accurate when they are literally just looking at someone's face for a few seconds," Leivers was quoted as saying.
"The fact that they are showing any accuracy from this limited information is pretty cool," she said.
Previous research that got men and women to judge faithfulness in the opposite sex by rating a whole series of photos on a scale showed women were accurate at faithfulness judgements but men were not.
The new findings provided some evidence that human males had evolved adaptations to prevent cuckoldry by distinguishing women who were more likely to be unfaithful in a relationship, Leivers said.
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