Measuring Beauty

Anaface analysis of Michelangelo's David

Anaface analysis of Michelangelo’s David

I’ve come across a paper that was using “beauty” as one of the predictors. To measure beauty, the authors used Anaface.com

I don’t trust metrics without trying them on a gold standard first. So, I tried how well Anaface does on something that the arts world considers as one of gold standards of beauty – Michelangelo’s David. My annotation might be imperfect, but David only gets to be only a good 7: his nose is too narrow and his eyes are too close.

Of course, I applaud the use of interesting predictors in studies, and Anaface is a better tool than anything I’ve seen before, but maybe we need better metrics! What do you think?