It is an age-old question – what makes someone attractive?
We often say things like 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' but while this romantic notion may bring comfort to those dealt a poor hand in life, it also gives the impression that the foundations of attractiveness are elusive and unpredictable.
It suggests that what each of us sees as an attractive trait – whether physical or psychological – is so variable that everyone must be looking for something different.
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Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Researchers from Swansea University hope their project will lead to an AI that learns what traits matter the most - and that could even advise people on how to make themselves more attractive
Researchers plan to measure dozens of volunteers' characteristics – including humour, intelligence, impulsivity, facial symmetry, strength, and more.
They then plan to creating models capable of learning what traits matter the most.
Two models will, they hope, be able to predict how one perceives one's own attractiveness, and judgements of attractiveness such as those made by the public after viewing online profiles.
While there is variety in what each of us regards as beautiful, cutting through this noise are common and consistent preferences.
Psychological traits such as a sense of humour, intelligence and kindness are generally sought after.
Similarly, physical attributes such as waist-to-hip ratio (the difference in waist and hip circumference), sex-typical voice pitch (basically, our expectation that men will have deep voices, and women high voices), and facial symmetry are also reliably desirable.
Finding someone who could take or leave someof these characteristics may be easy, but one would have a hard time finding someone yearning to meet a sour-faced, selfish and dull person who refuses to take a shower.
While researchers have taken steps to comprehensively catalogue the preferences of men and women, we still don't know which traits are the most important contributors to a person's attractiveness.
What we do know is that not all attractive traits are preferred equally.
This can be revealed using some basic psychological tasks, such as asking people to design a partner by allocating points to enhance their characteristics (similar to designing a character in a video game).
When given only a small points budget, tough choices have to be made – and some characteristics normally attractive in their own right tend to fade into the background.
One studyfound that creativity and talents were trumped by the likes of intelligence and social status during the task.
Interestingly, basic kindness tends to be one of the top traits when building the ideal long-term partner.
These tasks are great for assessing the individual traits that make up mate preferences.
But they do not necessarily capture how people make judgements about the attractiveness of living, breathing human beings.
They may tell us that humour is important, for instance, but we balance a range of criteria in assessing attractiveness.
A funny personality may seem less appealing in a person who is selfish.
