A new study claims that a facial recognition technology can determine a person's personality type 58% of the time by analyzing an emotionless selfie submitted by volunteers. Using an artificial neural network, researchers assessed 128 different factors of a person's face, including the width of the mouth, and height of the lips or eyes.
The data from these readings were then used to categorize a person based on the Big Five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. They found that the AI technology accurately guessed the volunteers' personality type 58% of the time when they compared the readings to the questionnaires filled in by volunteers.
The researchers said that on pure chance, AI would get this right 50% of the time, and humans are less consistent than the facial recognition method.
Using Ai in Categorizing Personality Types
Scientists used the so-called Big Five traits, a well-established method to categorize personalities. They found that the artificial intelligence technology used more accurately classified women than men and was best at recognizing the conscientiousness trait.
Twelve thousand volunteers uploaded 31,000 selfies to the study, Daily Mail reports. These selfies were then split into two groups wherein one uses an AI system, and the other group was used to test the network.
According to researchers from two Moscow Universities, HSE University (Higher School of Economics) and Open University for the Humanities and Economics, the artificial neural network outperforms humans who are asked to rate the personality of a person but without any knowledge of that person.
They claim that this new technology will help bosses or hiring managers to identify the most suitable applicants for a job. This technology improves the selection of the 'best matches' for dating websites, customer service, or online tutoring.
Dr. Evgeny Osin, the study co-author, said that faces contain a significant amount of information about the person. With the help of this new technology, making choices in life partners could help people achieve a more satisfying interaction outcome.
"This study presents new evidence confirming that human personality is related to individual facial appearance," said Osin.
To date, this new study is the most reliable evidence that 'physiognomy' or the process in assessing a person's personality, actually works. The study is fully described in Scientific Reports.
OCEAN: Personality Traits Reveal the Kind of Life Someone is Likely to Live
The Big Five personality traits are openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism or known collectively as OCEAN. Scientists said that a person's personality reveals the kind of life that he/she will likely live.
For example, a person who scores high on conscientiousness is likely to have good physical health and more harmonious relationships. At the same time, those extroverts are happier or, for instance, more likely to have tattoos and engage in high adrenaline rush activities.
On the other hand, neurotics experience more mental health problems. Open-minded people command higher earnings, while people with high scores in agreeableness tend to be popular and have a lot of friends.
According to Dr. Osin, the results of the study showed that real-life photographs taken in uncontrolled conditions could be used to predict personality types with complex computer vision algorithms.
"The advantage of our methodology is it is relatively simple - it does not rely on 3D scanners or 3D facial landmark maps - and can be easily implemented using a desktop computer," Dr. Osin added.
