American scientists interviewed 203 couples about their infidelities and found that men were also more likely to have cheated on their wives or girlfriends, with 29 percent admitting to at least one affair compared to 18,5 percent of the women.
Women made correct inferences about their partner's infidelity about 80 percent of the time, but men scored significantly better - they were right about 94 percent of the time, according to Dr Paul Andrews of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
"But we also found that men tended to suspect infidelity when there wasn't any," he said.
"We also developed a statistical method for estimating the amount of under-reporting of infidelity. We found that men tended to be honest about their affairs whereas women tended to under-report infidelities by about 10 percent.
"Women - appear to be so much better at concealing their infidelity whereas men are better at detecting infidelity."
The research, published in the journal Human Nature, lends support to the idea that men are honed by evolution to be wary of infidelity in their partners because they aren't sure whether the children they are supporting are their own or if they have been cuckolded.
The findings from the study needed to be supported by further research, but they suggested there was an evolutionary "arms race" between the sexes, with men trying to get better at detecting sexual infidelity in women and women becoming more skilled at concealing it, said Andrews.
"We found evidence suggesting that men may be more motivated to seek out information that resolves suspicions about the sexual fidelity of their partners, and this may contribute to their greater accuracy." - The Independent