Slashdot Mirror
Deciphering the Brain's Love Map
victor7 writes "Business Week Online is running a story about a new entrant into the online dating service market called Chemistry.com which has a unique approach to trying to match up subscribers. The goal is to try to programmatically decipher the subscriber's brain's 'love map' which they believe represents that chemistry that people have with each other." From the article: "There are other personality types as well that are based on chemistry. There are questions that tell us if you are good at abstract thinking, or quick to make decisions and act on them. It's not exactly like I'm going to light a fire between the two of you. It just raises the chances. Most people fall in love because they have shared values, but they stay in love because their personalities mesh. We're trying to increase the changes of finding that spark and joy and excitement you feel when personalities mesh."
From the slashdot article:
I remember, but can't cite, an article or study that pretty much shows the odds of people staying together are pretty much the same in marriages where couples fall in love (e.g., in the United States), or in arranged marriages (many cultures), even in arranged marriages where the betrothed are extremely young (sometimes as young as 12 or 13), and even in arranged marriages with large age disparities.
First, does anyone else remember any similar studies? I've found "staying together" seems to have much to do with chemistry, and little observable similarities and tastes correlate. Just curious. What are others' observations?
did a nerd domain name like "chemistry.com" got registered first by a dating service company?
Programaticaly created/discovered love is meaningless. We need to dispel the mistique of computers and tech, or they become a new religion. People seeking a website where they would have previously seen a sothsayer. I feel it would be dehumanizing for a program to narrow down potential selections, especialy for it to claim to do so based on a programatic psychological analisys. Many of my best friends are people who's "chemistry" I'm sure I would never match to.
Less look fast, more go fast.
I don't know, it sounds more like an advertisement for Chemistry.com and less like anything scientific to me.
So, this advertisement in Business Week gets mentioned on Slashdot for more advertsing, huh? Business Week - the heralded scientific publication that it is. *yawn*
The concept of "love mapping" is just dumb. I'll tell you what is required - a good looking chick and a good looking guy - preferably with money, power or fame - all three in best of circumstances.
All the other bullshit is just that - bullshit. People can justify their attractions or what they desire in someone all they want, but guys deep down don't want the smart witty girl - unless she also happens to be totally hot. The girl doesn't want the sensitive feminine guy - she wants the hot guy with money or power and charisma.
It's really not that hard to figure out. I guess if you're ugly and have no money, power or charisma, then you try to hope there is some other random element involved, but you know deep down that you're kidding yourselves.
"Most people fall in love because they have shared values, but they stay in love because their personalities mesh"
That's strange... Hollywood actors / actresses seem to have both shared values (a love of money / entertainment) and shared personalities (general arrogance and a belief of personal entitlement). It makes me wonder why it seems like none of their relationships last longer than the milk in my refrigerator.
I agree. I've measured a correspondence in my own interests with peaks of C8H10N4O2, but sometimes this chemical is overwhelming and I have to order decaf.
Scrap the whole "article" thing and just make this an ad for the online dating service market called Chemistry.com?
Wah Sig!
Stupid algorithm is full of BS. Says I should be dating men.
I hate you, incompetent Harvard science faculty. M.I.T. is forever!
I suggest you read Slashdot
Who can't smell marketing a mile away? Slashdot is really sinking...! Anyone else feel this way?
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
It's not exactly like I'm going to light a fire between the two of you.
That is, of course, your profiles show that you're both pyromaniacs with uncontrollable lust at the sight of an open flame. In that case, we may be able to arrange something...
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
This is the first time I've ever posted for an editorial related reason, but when I read this, it just stood out ...
No, I am not an English major. My posts are subject to typos and incorrect grammar. Do not expect perfection.
Yeah, yeah... flamebait. You mod me down because you know I speak the hard truth.
It could be intelligence, knowledge on any of a number of dimensions, social grace, physical strength, affection, aggressiveness, niceness, humor, ambition, earning-power, etc.
Disclaimer: I've been married nearly 22 years so that means I either know what I'm talking about or have an insufficient sample size to comment on this.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
My thoughts can be summed up here: http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=1396.
Seriously, I've never heard of anyone who dated someone they met online and had it end up well.
I thought that the odds were much BETTER for staying together in the arranged marriage couples. However, the source of this cohesion is disputed: some say that it is because of societal pressures on couples that would otherwise get divorce, others say that it's because the couple understands that what makes a good marriage is not the initial attraction but the actions and kindness that sustain everyday life.
"Most people fall in love because they have shared values, but they stay in love because their personalities mesh"
Hmm. Sounds like a weenie in marketing came up with that. Wonder how long it is until he gets his own daytime TV show, or a website like that wiener with his Men are from Mercury and Women are from Uranus or whatever...
Someone once wisely said that compatibility is really about adaptability. People go into relationships expecting "compatibility". What people really need to do is learn how to adapt to other's personalities. Even if you have met someone with whom you are compatible you will have to constantly adjust your personality so that you can stay in tune with this person. People do change after all.
Also, if people do not have a sense of commitment things will fall apart once times get tough. Our society in general looks down on commitment as being old fashioned. Maybe that's why our divorce rate is 50%. Chemistry.com won't change that and I have to suspect will go the way of webvan.com.
blah blah blah
Why oh why does this not surprise me. That " programmatically decipher the subscriber's brain's 'love map'" is on slashdot. I think the reason nerds sometimes find love hard to get is because we are going about it wrong. "Hey baby, your love map is compatible with mine, lets compile." Maybe I just think its a tad strange..but we can hope right? :)
(insert comment about modding my post down in hopes it will simply be modded up)
Have we not learned from our ventures in weather forecasting, that complex systems, love and relationships, in this case, cannot be predicted through the force of equations.
I prefer more traditional methods, the tea leaves say that I will have a good day tomorrow!
I am not a crackpot.
Dating?!? ...I'm a Slashdot reader, you insensitive clod!
Isn't it the case that most people you've had physical chemistry with: it was an instantaneous, physical thing? Or at least started with some initial attraction? That's certainly been the case for me.
...) and then meet them in person and be revolted or at least unmitigatedly disappointed.
But don't confuse: it's not purely looks-based. I've been attracted to ("had chemistry with") plenty of not-Brad-Pitt-looking (who I think is very pre-packaged looking anyway) guys. I personally can't explain what its source is. Instinct? Intuition? Pheromones? But I likewise have difficulty believing that a questionnaire can capture all of what goes on in that nanosecond when we see a member of hte opposite sex and go, hmmm.
Especially given what she cites re: internet dating and which probably more of us than would like can substantiate from personal experience: you can be very familiar with a person's personality via the written word (e.g. hours kept, sense of humor, energy level, aggressiveness, character even
A strict questionnaire is a bullshit game; they should have at least had folks choose musical snippets they preferred, pictures they preferred -- make it somewhat not all 2-dimensional ASCII text.
I'd suspect that it has to do with people recognizing the inherent good and worth (no, not financially) in another human being, and respecting them. When you respect your significant other / spouse...even if you're different people, you make compromises and such, and the relationship survives.
Please help metamoderate.
As you read my post,... haven't you begun to notice that with every word, ... every character you read... that you begin to really begin to breathe heavy, and as your heart beats faster, and you feel yourself falling a little sleepy... and as you find yourself doing these things, you remember a time, ... a time long ago when you met a special person you remember fondly...and fell in love.... NOW, with me... in my experience... you want to give me positive mod points. Your karma will thank you, oh yes...
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
What seems silly about this to me is that if you want to get into the actual science of attraction, and use physiological measures to find suitable partners, that might be interesting. However, despite the name "chemistry.com" it seems according to TFA that they do not actually measure any chemistry in their clients. They ask you a series of questions, each one supposedly telling about your "brain chemistry". Why not just take a blood sample and measure a few things?
As I understand in India there is or at least has historically been a very strong taboo on divorce. This might account for why as many of these folks stay together as those conjoined by "love marriages." But anyway I think the numbers for arranged marriages staying together are much, much higher due to the near impossibility of obtaining a divorce.
A 13-year old betrothed to a 60-year old cannot actually be thought to have the same opportunity for divorce as a rich Manhattan female attorney.
Ultimately, we are a bunch of interconnected neurons, which implies that there should be some algorithm that predicts how we will react to, say, a member of the opposite sex with certain well-defined characteristics - smell, color, size of boobs, social status, whatever else you can think of. But, I doubt if something as simplistic as this could even be a close approximation. Also, this article looks like cheap propaganda - stinks !
I was bored, so I took the "test". It is rubbish, similar to anything you might find anywhere else. It is mostly long strings of inane questions like "I am spontaneous" (A) a little (B) somewhat (C) quite a bit (D) very much, or "I enjoy attending musical or sports events." I guess they couldn't get the rights to use the Meyers-Briggs.
Yes, there are one or two (actually three) weird flash games that use optical illusions ("line up these two sticks so they have the same length!") and they really do ask you to look at your fingers. No idea if any of that actually gets fed into the algorithm -- I imagine it's most likely just tossed in the rubbish and used to get stories posted on slashdot and BusinessWeek.
Anyway, I filled out the survey as honestly as possible (given the circumstances); I had to lie and say I live in Denver. The first "match" that came up was a rather unattractive 30 year old who described herself in her profile "headline" as a "Strong Christian" and was generally someone this 20 something grad student would not even class as datable.
So: mostly rubbish, IMO.
...geeks refuse to sleep with hot girls!
Sorry, it's the only response I could think of for such an idiotic story.
The latest Slashdot meme.
I think it looks something like this:
( o )( o )
*ducks*
bash: rtfm: command not found
I don't need a lovemap.
Never huh? Let me fix that for you. We've been together four years now and I say mine turned out well. (YMMV)
In the pursuit of strictest accuracy though, it should be noted that we met by chatting, not through a dating site. I believe that it gave us a chance to meet we would have otherwise have missed. We were also both honest with each other since each expected to just find someone to talk to rather than a date.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Give it a few years, you'll get over it.
Falling in love is often a result of C2H5OOH overdose or starvation. Staying in love is often a result of getting just the right amount of C2H5OOH.
--
make install -not war
Guessing by the language they use to describe their compatibility algorithm, I would say their matchmaking is heavily influenced by the Myers-Briggs personality theory. This theory has been around for quite some time and is used by many matchmaking services. As pointed out in Please Understand Me (1 and 2), certain pairs of myers-briggs personality types tend to do very well in romantic relationships.
Wikipedia on Myers-Briggs
Chemistry.com seems to be nothing new.
On a different note, I always thought it would be fascinating to let loose some datamining programs on one of these matchmaking services databases. Maybe we could discover a better indicator of compatibility.
Living in a metropolitan core pays dividends. Not far from my place there's a few square blocks lined with many beautiful women who can tell how much they will love you just by the amount of money you have in your pocket. It's just a matter of adding up the numbers and denominations and figuring how long and how badly you want to be loved. Weird science but guys drive by in droves wanting that loving.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
...besides the fact that they are woefully 2-dimensional despite what is--by all accounts--a very multi-dimensional experience, falling in love, IS that they ask individuals to evaluate themselves: a losing proposition from the get-go.
Haven't we already established that people are terrible judges of themselves? Don't something like 80% of people think they are of above average intelligence? looks? etc?
I tire quickly of these questionnaires for another reason too: they are, to my mind, somewhat mood- or life-stage-dependent. I often have a hard time answering the questions because BOTH answers could be true (or all, for the range queries) at any given time. I suspect I'm not alone in this.
...that reminds me of a little joke my uncle used to tell.
...the American covers her breasts,
...the European covers her crotch,
...and the Mideastern woman covers her face.
:-)
So there's these three naked women, chit-chatting with each other in a boudoir. One is an American, one is a European, and one is from the Middle East.
Some random guy gets lost, and stumbles into the boudoir, Mr. Bean-like. The three women notice him, scream, and...
(Mind you, this was one of his tamer ones...
iSKUNK!
I'm pretty sure there are some people whose personality will not allow them to get along with _anybody_, and who are destined to die bitter and alone (unless they have some kind of life-changing experience which causes a major personality change).
I wonder if these guys' "brain maps" will tell their customers that?
Please enter your hobbies: [ blahblahblah, slashdot, blahblah ]
Finding your appropriate girlfriend - *BEEP* Error... error... processor overload... *BOOM*
She's an anthropologist who implies that she can tell if you have high levels of serotonin just by asking you 100 questions about your past relationships and such.
From TFA:
Now
It also found the reverse: those male academics with longer ring fingers than index fingers - the usual male pattern - tended not to be in science but in social science subjects such as psychology and education.
The study also found that these hormonal levels may make male scientists less likely to have children.
That's some damn good science stuff!
But (that's a joke, son!) there may be more to the reasoning why male scientists don't have children.....
Finger length is linked to sexual orientation! http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds_and_oddities/f
Great. This seems to be the more of the crap "science" so popular today. Just because two characteristics appear in one group does NOT mean that there is any correlation between those characteristics.
But all kidding aside, it's really scary to consider that a majority of the population could, statistically, be below average intelligence, with a minority of extremely smart people holding up the line on the opposite side.
I'm just happy I can forlumate words correctly.
Creating a "love map" is not an original idea. A visit to any of the web's free horoscope sites reveals a process that, while whimsical in its foundations, is extremely mathematical and very rigorous in its methodology. Astrology works on the concept of people's personalities depending on a set of attributes that are assigned a pyramidal weightage structure. The crux of the argument is, getting past the occult derivations, once two personality maps have been arrived at, the method astrologers use to arrive at compatibility scenarios are much more sophisticated than anything dating services have come up with, IMHO
Hi,
I like walks in the park, cooking and sitting in front of a roaring fireplace with a nice glass of port.
Oh, and I am also seeking a like minded individual that thought the article was stupid - I mean, come on, BusinessWeek talking about the science of Love. Sheesh.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
Won't somebody please think of the grandparents!
:-)
I just did a trial signup (using a mailinator email address of course) and note that if you are born before 1920 you can't participate. I know my granny is older than that and as her husband died not long ago she could be in the market.
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
Obviously you missed my point.
Less look fast, more go fast.
Haven't scientists done this study like 18 times already? I think its becoming painfully obvious that scientists are just looking for more excuses to watch porn inside the MRI machine.
What really astonishes me, though, is that I came up with four basic personality types in my research, and these same four types have been described by Plato, Aristotle, Carl Jung, Myers-Briggs.
No way! Her assumptions were the very same ones passed down by our culture? Astonishing!
Thats is what I really need. My ex-wife and ex-girlfriends spouting on about everything I did wrong. I can just see it "He doesn't pay enough attention", "He wants sex too much.", "he sits on home on saturdays and watch's SciFI and [adult swim]" , "he leaves shit stains on his underwear" blah blah blah. But you know what if a girls is willing to put up with that pre-emptively rather than just something she discovers down the road, I guess I am willing to give her a try.
"To Err is Human To Forgive is Divine neither of which is Marine Corp Policy"-My SNCOIC
Have you ever taken an MBTI test?
I think chemistry.com could be wildly successful just by matching people with their MBTI supplimentals.
bite my glorious golden ass.
You should take a look at OKCupid.com if the idea intrigues you. They've got a set of eerily accurate personality tests, and some interesting math behind them. It's all free, run for fun by the same people who brought us TheSpark and SparkMatch, if you remember those.
It's ok, there's a whole ocean full of fish out there ;)
This site and its author suggest that chemistry is sufficient to create love.
Chemistry is great. But, chemistry is not love and is never sufficient to create or cause love.
Chemistry is attraction: physical attraction and attraction to a personality (liking someone).
Love is about caring.
You love for what you give. Everyone has heard that, and yet so many people don't get it. It's very sad, and this site is perpetuating the idea that you just have to find strong enough chemistry and you are guaranteed to be in love. Without caring, the only thing you can possibly find is infatuation. Then, when the infatuation wears off, and it will, you've got nothing left - even the chemistry disappears.
Confusing love and attraction hurts people.
How love works to men is how cars work to women.
Most women don't worry about how a car turns gas into a trip to the mall.
It's been my experience that men shouldn't concern themselves with rules or observed phenomena when it comes to love.
Every time I've tried to pick it apart, I can't seem to get the pieces back together to make it work again.
I'm taking my own advice and not addressing the issue.
Someone hates these cans.
Of course, everybody thinks they're one of those really smart ones. Did you see that study by the APA which showed that the more convinced you were of your own intelligence, the more likely you were to be wrong? Those jokers really annoy those of us who are at the top.
Crap...
Doesn't eHarmony, Tickel (eMode), Match.com, and half a dozen other sites do the same thing? Each using similar or different methods of psichology? Seriously, I tried eHarmony and this Chemistry.com sounds like its methods of hooking two people up are exactly the same, just rebranded as "love maping."
EOM
This isn't really new. Internet dating sites have had personality tests backed by actual psychological research for a long time. Instead of referring to the results in terms of personality traits like extroversion and conscientiousness, though, chemistry.com uses serotonin level, testosterone, etc. It's more gimmick than anything. For example, high levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin are theorized to be inversely associated with neuroticism (the personality trait of being prone to anxiety, fearful reactions, and emotional instability). Dominance/aggressiveness/competitiveness is as easily answered with a personality survey as with a measurement of a person's fingers. Actually, aggressive tendencies can be sublimated in a positively: working hard to support a cause one believes in, playing sports, etc. If a physical trait is used, it may offer an inaccurate picture of how that trait is expressed.
I really don't see what sets chemistry.com apart besides the angle they're taking. Personality is personality no matter what words you use to describe (serotonin and testosterone or contentment and social dominance).
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
Most people fall in love because they have shared values, but they stay in love because their personalities mesh.
;) On the other hand, she could care less about these things, minus the fact that her recipe database works, along with Yahtzee. ha! Hell, I like shooting, Harley's, amateur radio among other things.
I'll be married 14 years this Novemeber, and me and my wife are almost "totally" different in many respects. We don't share some interests, such as I'm a big computer geek that likes to try new stuff all the time, run linux, bitch about MS, and the RIAA.
But then again we get along for the most part, (minus the obsession of "jewlery") and we do have some commen interests like camping / backpacking. I also do listen (sometimes!) In a nutshell, it comes out to respect, communication and just having fun. If you can't have the last three, you're screwed.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
For a moment there I thought it read "Deciphering Brian's Love Map."
He's not Cassanova. He's just a very naughty boy
This is just a rehab of Match.com
this is slashdot after all, can't get picky eh?
Yet another dating site? What the hell is this doing on the front page?
Here's a thought. Do you think dating sites are interested in you falling in love and terminating your monthly subscription fees? Or do you find they tell you to write lots of personalized and intriuging emails to many different prospects? And by prospect I mean propspective customer. You know, that person who just wanted to see a little more about the dating site and wrote a profile and doesn't yet pay the monthly fees but might in order to respond to an interesting enough message.
I recall seeing an interesting BBC documentary called Human Instinct by Professor Robert Winston that explored the science behind attraction. There were heaps of interesting things they uncovered in the research studies he reported on.
They used morphing to create faces and had people rate the attractiveness of these faces. One experiment used faces that were morphed from female faces to male faces. They found that women tended to be more attracted to male faces that exhibited less masculine features generally. But ovulating women found male faces with more masculine features attractive. They also found that people tended to be more attracted to faces that have some similarities to their own. They did this by morphing a little bit of a test subject's face into some of the samples.
Another interesting test had to do with immune systems and scents. In their studies, they found that people with more different immune systems were more attracted to each other. In the example for the documentary, they tested five (or six- I forget) female subjects for certain immune system markers. They rated them from those that had markers more closely resembling Prof. Winston's own immune system to those that were more different. They then had these women sleep in shirts (over a span of nights, I think) so the shirts would smell. These shirts were placed in sealed jars. In the demonstration, Prof. Winston had to smell each jar and rate them from best to worst. Sure enough, the pattern in which he arranged them exactly matched the pattern of how his immune system compared to that of the shirt's owner.
Waiter!? There's an advertisement in my slashdot!
Being in a relationship is like a hobby. Some people enjoy doing it, others not so much. What we call love for another person is really just love for the activities involved in maintaining a relationship with that person.
If you don't enjoy all that stuff, then by all means find something else to do with your spare time. Each to his own.
OK.
Sure, if you want to view it that way. My relationship with my girlfriend keeps me from being lonely, and sure, I might be a bit obsessed with her.
But I do know that we can go ages without getting things like cards and flowers and diamonds for each other and still be fine. We aren't staying together just so that we can "feel better than others" either, it's so we feel better about ourselves and our own lives because we make each other's life better just by being there.
About a year ago, I was a very dark, slightly depressed person (though you wouldn't see it from talking to me as I keep such things fairly well hidden). After meeting my girlfriend, my life started to become better almost immediately. And it didn't happen for the newfound lack of loneliness, or because I might be making people without what I have feel worse about themselves (of which I really regret if I've ever done). It also had nothing to do with fulfilling some lustful need we both had; the first few months of our relationship was online and our lives were still much better than they were before.
The reason our lives are better is because we love each other.
We would do anything for each other. We will help each other out in dark times. We're happy to just sit around and do nothing if it means being together.
And I really hope you find that some day because it is something beautiful.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The very simple male love map has 2 large mountains on it with all roads leading in.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
No.
"Of course you'd say that. You have the brainpan of a stagecoach tilter."
I am not a crackpot.
Your sandy hair floats in the air... To me it's like a lullaby... I'm just flying by... Oh so high... like a kite... tied to a stake...
"Love" is a word we use because language hasn't fully caught up to the complexity of life. It is, in technical parlance, an overloaded term, and a poorly overloaded one at at that. It convers a multitude of things that aren't really, when it comes down it, very closely related at all. Certainly it is used to cover what you clearly have in mind, but it also is used to mean things that perhaps you've never experienced yet.
Now the thing to look out for is when "love" is used in a story -- particular a story meant to be a template for you to adjust your life to. They're often nasty little mind viruses. But the contrary stories are always nasty little mind viruses.
No, better to act with kindness, feel with compassion, think with open mindedness, and to be aware of the humanity of others. Then you'll know everything about "love" that's worth knowing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Now if they want to map the love brain in men, the have to head a little bit south.
Back in the 70's, when I worked as a journalist, I was sent to cover a seminar with all sorts of scientific types, such as anthropologists, sociologists, etc. One of the papers presented was a scientific study, done worldwide, as to what men universally seek in a woman, and what women universally seek in a man. In a nutshell, men seek - youth, status and lighter skin (although it was acknowledged that this can be culturally overwritten - i.e. tans in the Caucasian coastal areas) Women universally seek - status. It's simple, guys. Increases your social status and women will find you attractive. Status can take many forms. Some women look for high status in material objects. As a geek female, I sought high intelligence (and found it in a short, bearded astrophysicist).
How unbelievably stupid. Sounds just as pseudo-scientific as eHarmony. It's all about the f**kability, kids: If the chick's not hot-looking (by the viewer's standards) nothing is going to convince him to email her.
IME, most men don't understand what "chemistry" is all about. It really IS about shared values, ways of thinking, personal interests, etc. But IME men look no farther than a woman's weight and attractiveness score. This site strikes me as a serious waste of time if you're really interested in meeting someone "special." Then again, I regard most on-line dating sites as a complete waste of time, because they're really just beauty contests. I prefer to meet people the old-fashioned way, in the real world. Makes much more sense, because then guys are forced to get to know women better, before letting their dicks get in the way of their better judgement. Then REAL "chemistry" has an avenue for happening.
I don't know what guys' experiences with these sorts of things are like, but I would be interested in finding out.
From my point of view, the problem is denial of responsibility.
People think that whether you stay married or get divorced is something that just happens, rather than something that two people do to themselves.
Similarly, people like to think that whether a relationship is good or bad is random, instead of a result of decisions made by two people.
We like to think that our lives are governed by large decisions/events that come every once-in-a-while, but in reality our lives are mostly governed by our small, everyday choices.
(Curiously, our happiness is entirely determined by our small, everyday choices.)
Note: I do understand that there are times that the divorce/bad marriage is practically entirely the fault of only one of the parties, but even then it is due to decisions, not chance.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.