
Data-Driven Enhancement of Facial Attractiveness - sheffield
http://www.leyvand.com/research/beautification2008/
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tsumnia
The PDF branches off of Active Shape Modeling (by Tim Cootes,
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Active_shape_...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Active_shape_model))
with a style I'm not entirely familiar with, however basing off my background
I think I can expain a little of what is going one.

Active Appearance Models are a extension of Active Shape Modeling, effectively
taking a set of landmark points on a shape (in this case a face), and
averaging them out to the 'average shape' of the face. AAMs take it to the
next level by taking this average face and warping the original landmarked
face to the average shape. From here it takes the average of the textures of
the face, producing eigenvectors. These vectors would be used as a unique
identifier if the program was running some form of face recognition.

In lieu of face recognition something you can use the averaged AAM face for it
recreating a face BASED off the average (say for this paper's example:
beauty). By generating an averaged AAM model off only those subjects that
scored an 8 (out of 10) or above, you create the 'average attractive face'.

Now, if you take John Doe's face with a score 5, and generate the eigenvectors
that would represent his face based on the 'Good-Looking People Only Scale',
it would create a better looking version of him.

Another application of this technique is digital face aging (example here:
[http://www.intechopen.com/source/pdfs/14645/InTech-
Implicati...](http://www.intechopen.com/source/pdfs/14645/InTech-
Implications_of_adult_facial_aging_on_biometrics.pdf)) in which instead of
'morphing' the subject's face to look more attractive, you morph the subject's
to look 'older' based on statistical averages based on age range, gender, and
ethnicity.

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impendia
There are 100,000 people on online dating sites that would pay $20 each for
this.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
There was a reconstructive surgeon that did a lot research into beauty,
because he had to remake faces given partial information. He found golden
ratios for all the major features of the face. He constructed a transparent
mask with guidelines and did wonders for his patients.

This was the best application I have heard for similar research. Not so much
for the money aspect but for the good it did.

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rakkhi
What do you guys think about a smartphone app that could be panned around to
capture a 3D image then used the golden mask to calculate an objective
attractiveness score?

Would be some fun engineering and probably pretty popular.

~~~
bad_user

        then used the golden mask to calculate an 
        objective attractiveness score
    

Except that you can't calculate an objective attractiveness score, even if
there is statistical consensus among raters. Might as well just throw some
random numbers on the screen, it wouldn't matter much anyway since your app
will be less effective and gather less interest than HotOrNot.com did 11 years
ago.

A much better project would be a piece of software that automatically
_enhances the aesthetic appeal_ of people in photos. Imagine looking great in
any profile picture you upload on Facebook (or whatever), without you or your
friends noticing the change (blaming it on distortions from image resizing).

~~~
rakkhi
Interesting idea. Seems to be what the OP has researched

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jared314
Why do they never release the applications for these things? Copyright?

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wccrawford
I always assumed they planned to create a commercial product. And maybe they
do and we never hear of it.

~~~
khafra
I have a feeling that's very common. I recall a big to-do about Cortexica and
their brain-inspired computer vision algorithm. They built it into an iPhone
wine label recognition app, which currently has two ratings; both one-star.

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zbowling
Forget fatbooth. Make this an iPhone app and you would be a millionaire!

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trebor
Most common attractive feature: a smile! Even if not outright happy, just
looking relaxed or cheerful helps.

~~~
r00fus
This is also what I noticed immediately. A smile goes a long way to
determining "beauty".

Perhaps this is because a smile indicates a positive/friendly demeanor?

I always had the best impression of women with whom I worked/studied with were
the ones who were warm to me.

Perhaps beauty does come from the inside?

~~~
trebor
I think that it's more important to look friendly, or approachable, to be
attractive to someone. In my experience I've found that a smile is better than
a scowl, and definitely better than a neutral expression.

True beauty comes from inside. My grandparents weren't terribly attractive...
but I'll never forget my grandfather's smile. When he smiled it lit his face
in such a powerful way I can see him even now (he's been dead almost 9
years!).

And I don't think that women looking "flirty" is attractive. Looks more
predatory to me.

~~~
bad_user

        I don't think that women looking "flirty" is attractive.
    

But they are more attractive - for the same reason that women wearing short
skirts are more attractive and it may not be for the same reason you think it
is.

The reason has to do with accessibility: women, unlike men, are very picky
when it comes to dating. We (men) know this and when a woman doesn't look like
she's looking for men, we often choke or don't bother pursuing a date. A
flirty attitude is the strongest indication that a woman is interested.

    
    
        Looks more predatory to me
    

Some people, men or women alike, often end up with dumb looks in photos ::
that's what happens when wanting to simulate sensuality when you're not in the
mood, not to mention some people are just not photogenic and really need the
help of an expert for such photos. I am talking about genuine sexy looks
above, not " _let me eat your brain_ " looks :)

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aj700
Is the software pictured at the bottom of the page avail to download?

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peteretep
As far as I can see from the pictures, people like women more when they smile,
and men more when they lose weight.

~~~
eru
When they lose fat.

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afterburner
For the male example at the top, the shape of the face is so changed it
doesn't look like the same person.

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hugh3
Man, I'd hate to be one of the models for one of these pictures. "Ohhhh yeah,"
say thousands of internet users. "That computer-generated version really _is_
a lot better-looking than the real one due to those horrible flaws on that
person's face". No thanks, I'd rather not see the difference between my face
and a better-looking version of my face, it'd just make me feel bad.

On a broader point though, the human taste for "average-looking" faces is an
interesting one. Aside from anything else it's an interesting Nash equilibrium
-- I want to find a mate with an average-looking face so that we can produce
children with average-looking faces who will be the most desirable breeding
partners in the next generation.

What I really wonder is whether "average-looking" is hard-wired in, or whether
we're programmed to spend our childhood scanning all the faces around us and
mentally averaging them out to determine what a human face _should_ look like.
I suspect the latter -- it's a much more stable strategy over evolutionary
timescales, and also explains things like why people often find people of
their own race more attractive, and why mixed-race people are often unusually
attractive.

~~~
kurtosis
I'm too lazy to look up the ref, but someone told me that the preference for
average faces was actually an artifact of the averaging process. It turns out
that averaging images of faces also makes the skin look a lot younger and
smoother, and therefore more attractive.

~~~
_delirium
One way to test it would be to see if the _median_ face, by some choice of
metric, was also more attractive. The problem with other averaging methods,
like simple pixel averaging, is that you can produce a result that is not
actually particularly similar to any face anyone has. For example, if you had
a population where _everyone's_ face was highly asymmetric, but 50% in one
direction and 50% in the other direction, the average would be a symmetric
face that is completely atypical for the population.

~~~
trout
There also appears to be studies that say attractive faces are easier for the
brain to process.

<http://bit.ly/cdH8b>

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ignifero
You know what i think, the filters put a smile on these photos rather than
anything else.

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albertsun
It appears to just make each face smile more.

~~~
wccrawford
Actually, if you look closer, it alters just about everything... Most
noticeable is the size of the forehead, nose, chin and jaw.

I don't see it there, but also correcting asymmetry helps as well.

