

ML algorithm predicts human emotional response to abstract visual art - pav3l
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/140681-computer-ai-successfully-identifies-why-abstract-art-evokes-human-emotion

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pav3l
The original title ("Computer AI successfully identifies why abstract art
evokes human emotion") is a bit misleading, particularly the " _why_ " part.

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aufreak3
Yes it is misleading indeed. From the description, the program extrapolated
the emotional responses collected from 100 people for 500 paintings (??) to
other paintings. No explanation is involved here to justify the use of "why"
in the title as you point out. The title is likely to have made the original
authors cringe.

Also consider this - the predictive power is dependent on the features tracked
by the machine vision algo, which is decided by humans in the first place. We
can ask whether the prediction would be as good as 80% if the vision algo only
processed monochrome images. So was the "explanation" baked in beforehand?

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sp332
So the predictions are customized for each person, right? The computer has to
calibrate your emotional responses to known painting in order to predict how
you, personally, will react to a new painting. So emotional response to
abstract art is still subjective and personal, and the computer isn't so much
understanding the art as getting to know the people.

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Groxx
80% accuracy seems too inaccurate, IMO. I would actually be surprised if you
can't get nearly that accurate with nothing but comparing overall colors and
quantity of edges (pick an edge detection effect, count pixels affected) - 4
dimensions of data. People are pretty simple, and pretty similar, and more
importantly so are artists.

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chrislloyd
I'm really interested in this. Any links to more information/original
research?

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pav3l
[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628916.000-computers...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628916.000-computers-
identify-what-makes-abstract-art-move-us.html)

EDIT: These are the Google Scholar profiles of the two scientists mentioned in
the article:

[http://scholar.google.ca/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en&...](http://scholar.google.ca/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en&user=fOmROdkAAAAJ&view_op=list_works)

[http://scholar.google.ca/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en&...](http://scholar.google.ca/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en&user=inVzWAcAAAAJ&view_op=list_works)

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lazugod
Is there an article here? The mobile site will only give me a single
nondescript paragraph.

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pav3l
Try the print version [http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/140681-computer-ai-
succes...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/140681-computer-ai-successfully-
identifies-why-abstract-art-evokes-human-emotion?print)

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lazugod
Unfortunately it redirects back to mobile.

