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Algorithms Can Make You Pretty
caffeinemessiah writes "The New York Times has an interesting story on a new algorithm by researchers from Tel Aviv University that modifies a facial picture of a person to conform to standards of attractiveness. Based on a digital library of pictures of people who have been judged 'attractive,' the algorithm finds the nearest match and modifies an input picture so it conforms to the 'attractive' person's proportions. The trick, however, is that the resultant pictures are still recognizable as the original person. Here's a quick link to a representative picture of the process. Note that this is a machine-learning approach to picture modification, not a characterization of beauty, and could just as easily be used to make a person less attractive." Note: As reader Trent Waddington points out, the underlying research was mentioned in an earlier story as well.
Someone had to have judged the pictures of those who were deemed to be attractive, and that person's opinion may not match that of the person who is getting the surgery, and both their opinions may not match that of others who will interact with the person electing to have the modification.
Twinstiq, game news
Fox "News" already does this when they're running stories about reporters from other news outlets.
--MarkusQ
That the 'before' picture is much more appealing. She has nice eyes and an interesting, engaging face. She looks like someone who would be worth talking to.
The 'after' picture looks like a generic pretty-but-not-beautiful girl. She looks like she would be interested in shopping and hairstyles. The world would be very boring if everyone looked like that.
Read Pynchon.
I couldn't sense any difference between the two pictures for most of the guys, but the pictures of the women seemed significantly different. Maybe I'm just weird, or maybe, as a guy, I recognize the subtleties of women's faces better, or maybe I recognize the differences more readily because I look at a lot more women than men.
Anyone else notice the same thing? As well, did any women notice the differences in the men a lot easier than in the women?
I wonder how much easily this could be accomplished just by enforcing the golden ratio on a face.
If you enforce the golden ratio too far, you get Precious Moments, where the eyes are a golden ratio down the face (resulting in a huge forehead) and the neck is a golden ratio up the body (resulting in difficulty putting on clothes).
But what to name it? D-Uglify? Barbiefy?
this was popularized by Marquardt who didn't publish his work in peer reviewed journals
see
Marquardt's Phi Mask: Pitfalls of Relying on Fashion Models and the Golden Ratio to Describe a Beautiful Face
Aesth Plast Surg (2008)
that isn't to say that facial proportions don't have a strong affect on attractiveness. In fact I think future research will show that there's an underlying preference for faces that conform to shapes that establish more ideal function, however the golden ratio just confuses this and gives it a mystical chain of being quality that doesn't really follow.
Mirrored yes. But more symmetric does appear more attractive.
From the sample it looks like their algorithm almost completely disregarded several opportunities for increasing symmetry and improved the face in other ways.
I dunno, I think the second was more attractive, due mostly I think due to the cleanup of a few blemishes and skin tone enhancement (but that was probably poor lighting in the original, anyway)
On the other hand.. The second picture looks a lot more like Summer Glau than it does like the first picture.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It takes a peculiar kind of curiosity in a mod to go with "interesting" instead of "funny" for the parent.
Please keep yourself as far away as possible from me and the gene pool.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
That was the subtlest Godwin I've ever seen. Alright everyone, thread over. Move along.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
It just hit me. You could have a special pair of goggles, sort of like night vision goggles- there's a camera, it adjusts the image, and then broadcasts it onto screens in front of your eyes. But instead of amplifying the light, the camera would feed images to software, which would recognize faces, and then make them pretty using this algorithm. Making this work in real time might require some major advances in computing, particularly face recognition, but in principle, it's practical. We could actually build a pair of beer goggles.
Of course, I still prefer to get beer goggles the old fashioned way.
"seems to show that our perception of beauty is based on the mean range of facial geometries we're exposed to"
not quite. it's true, there is a 2007 study in I think December Perception that shows friends living/working in similar environments have more similar facial preferences, however it has also been shown that "viewing faces biases recalibration of preferences towards characteristics that are common to the more attractive faces"
they conclude
"this bias in recalibration of preferences was abolished when participants' attention was directed away from the attractive faces, suggesting it is a consequence of the tendency to look longer and more often at attractive faces than at relatively unattractive faces."
which I wouldn't necessarily agree with that but it's consistent with the data they found (one annoyance I have with the facelab people is the focus on narrow experimental results which is great for output not having to bother too much with overarching explanations)
Hey! You stole my joke! I was thinking exactly the same thing. (GIRL: "You don't look like your photo." ME: "Yeah well it's a few years old.")
It's interesting that the "sample photo" really did not change much. It basically just shrunk the vertical resolution, thereby making her look rounder-headed, and more like a teenager. I could do that on paint very easily.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
It is exhibited in primates, birds, and even some insects.
Furthermore, spend some time in Asia - they are as obsessed with fashion and being pretty as any westerner. The want to be beautiful is universal.