It is a famous saying that a picture speaks a thousand words, but can it decipher personality traits? There is a possibility that people can give away a few of their personality traits through their facial expressions. Researchers from the Higher School of Economics University and Open University in Moscow have turned this possibility into a reality.

Working with a Russian AI psychological profiling company called BestFitMe, the researchers believe that using the right technology along with Artificial Intelligence, they can make an accurate judgment regarding an individual’s personality traits, through a selfie. Their research is published in the paper,

“Assessing the Big Five personality traits using real-life static facial images”.

The purpose of this research to was enhance the dating services’ capabilities and help other companies improve their sales by selling personalized products to the consumers.

The research depended on 12,000 volunteers, who were asked to fill a questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of all the important questions that helped in revealing an individual’s openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. They were also asked to submit their selfies, resulting in a total of 31,000 submissions.

These results were then recorded in a database to develop a neural network. The neural network, then, predicted the personality traits of each individual through their selfies. The neural network is known to be even more efficient in recognizing an individual’s personality traits than their own close relatives.

The algorithm is still under development and needs a lot of improvement, but it’s definitely another example of how AI is doing marvels for humanity.

Reference

Kachur, A., Osin, E., Davydov, D., Shutilov, K., & Novokshonov, A. (2020). Assessing the Big Five personality traits using real-life static facial images. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-65358-6