Avatars Used For Australian Online Sex Appeal Study

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."

Comments

Well that was obnoxious

[senorbum]

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.

Re:Well that was obnoxious

[Fluffeh]

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.

Desperately seeking Rosanne Barr Aliens

[linzeal]

I think what is happening is that the grey aliens are getting older, fatter and more lonely since being captured at Area 51 and exposed to a high fat and sedentary American superspy lifestyle. With this study they hope to find the ip addresses of those attracted to grey blobs and abduct you later tonight for a little probing.

The posture makes all the models unattractive

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried rating 4 different sets of models and I just couldn't find any that I could honestly rate above a 0. No matter what sized model I was shown, it seemed like there was something decidedly strange, disproportionate unattractive about their characteristics.

Then it hit me: It's the posture. The "blender pose" is just not a way that real humans go around holding their body. It seems fake, shows off all the wrong parts of the body, and exaggerates features of the model that would appear normally proportioned in a regular standing pose.

Given that (imo) gaping flaw in the dataset, I predict this will turn out to be another junk project that spawns CNN headlines like "Scientists find the perfect bodytype, and it's not what you expect!".

Re:All the feet were messed up.

[LoverOfJoy]

I think the car was to give you a sense of height.

Re:Dang...

[What the Frag]

Full-body scanners from the airport?

That's not how men work

[AftanGustur]

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.

They are doing it wrong

[DeadboltX]

You should be shown 2 or more models at a time and be asked to choose the best looking one. Rating each one individually on a scale is worthless.