| Suppose that you met a stranger. What is his personality like?
What kind of job is best suited for him/her? What can we find out just looking at his or her face?
In many fields of work that require diligence and responsibility, a professional is not limited to perform
his or her job based on the specific qualifications, but must possess the ability to "read" faces.
Included among these are such professions as doctors, lawyers and psychologists.
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Most people form their first impression of someone based on their intuition,
even when not familiar with the concept of physiognomy.
This is supported by such the familiar phrases as:
"silly face, keen eyes, honest looks and untrustworthy appearance."
The Naked Face by Malcolm Gladwell:
"All of us, a thousand times a day, read faces...
When we meet someone new, we often pick up on subtle signals...
We easily parse complex distinctions in facial expression... The face is such an
extraordinarily efficient instrument of communication that there must be
rules that govern the way we interpret facial expressions. But what are
those rules? And are they the same for everyone?"
However, our intuition is sometimes not enough to determine someone's character.
History provides a great amount of empirical evidence that
correlates facial traits and indicators of character.
There must be rules that govern the way we interpret facial traits.
Let's try to formulate the rules collected through centuries
by the history of physiognomy.
The main conclusion that we can draw from the history of physiognomy is that
there is a great deal of empirical evidence that
correlates facial features and character traits.
It is important to notice that the rules of physiognomy were determined by both charlatans and wise men.
Their life and well-being depended on the "accuracy" of their predictions.
But how was the "accuracy" of such judgment tested?
It is doubtful that people used endless psychological tests in order to
find an appropriate correlation.
It is more likely that the individual (maybe a king, a sultan, or a president)
simply compared the prognosis of the physiognomist with the opinion of friends and family.
Main conclusion:
Physiognomy not so much allows others to determine your real personality and possible behavior, as it allows you to understand
how others see you.
Let's try to use this methods in practice, overlooking the debates whether physiognomy
really is a true science or charlatanry.
Physiognomy is based on several complex and often contradictory rules.
For example,
"a round forehead is an indication of a brave individual, and a liar;"
"long forehead with a narrow chin is an indication of cruelty."
Aristotle says that
"thick, bulbous noses ends belong to persons who are insensitive, swinish;"
"sharp-tipped noses belong to the irascible, those easily provoked, like dogs;"
"rounded, large, obtuse noses to the magnanimous, the lionlike;"
and so on.
In order to obtain the desired results, we must calculate the necessary factors.
"round forehead --> adds X1% to honesty and X2% to intellect;"
"large noses --> adds Y1% to will power;"
This is a common example of neuron network calculation.
Neural network software is software which can acquire,
store, and utilize experiential knowledge.
As primary input we used the rules found in the literature of physiognomy.
Such factors as "facial defects and birthmarks" were not included in the calculation.
The eye color, hair color, were not used either.
The literature on physiognomy used was mainly european.
The main purpose was to obtain an algorithm that would allow us to compose a psychological
description of any individual based on the frontal view of his or her face.
The algorithm was tested and the analysis indicated that the correlation was significant.
Our software Digital Physiognomy
determines a person's psychological characteristics and presents a detailed character analysis of that person.
For example:
Psychological characteristics of Usama Bin Laden,
Comparative character analysis of
John Kerry and George W Bush.
Women in politics.
Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, and Segolene Royal.
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