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Avatars Used For Australian Online Sex Appeal Study

Posted by timothy on from the now-that's-a-research-job dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Australian scientists are seeking volunteers online to help them better understand sexual attraction. At a specially created website — www.bodylab.biz — users can go online and make their own ratings of computer-generated avatar images of men and women of greatly varying shapes, sizes, and proportions. The bodyLab team will analyse and compile the results and each month will cull about half of the images — those that are least popular — and virtually 'breed' new body shapes from parent avatars with features rated as most attractive by people taking part in the experiment. Over time, the scientists hope thousands of users will help them work through six or more generations of avatars to narrow down the special combinations of features that make up the 'ideal' body — although they're keeping an open mind about whether several combinations will emerge."

3 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Well that was obnoxious by senorbum · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Its honestly quite difficult to tell which grey cartoon body model is more attractive. I tried doing it, but I really just felt like I was making the ratings up...There are a few that looked like ogres that I could tell weren't attractive to me, but honestly that was about it.

    1. Re:Well that was obnoxious by Fluffeh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      so what would the point be?

      Yeah, I did it too, what a horrible bunch of models. It seems as if the whole thing only has one sliding scale for inflating the model.

      Also, the site just timed out three times when I tried to get their "overall progress" stats due to a sql timeout error. Stay classy bodylab.

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      Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
  2. That's not how men work by AftanGustur · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A normal guy wouldn't rate a woman 0-10 in his head, but rather a "yes" or a "no",
    Also. this "experiment" while interesting doesn't count for men getting horny, looking at pictures of naked women makes us horny, after a while our "reptilian brain" takes over and almost everything looks attractive.

    It would be interesting to measure that in the data ... How after 5-8 clicks, every fat blob gets increased sex appeal.

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    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc