Do you have a forgettable face?
Your face could be instantly transformed into a more memorable one without the need for an expensive makeover, thanks to an algorithm developed by MIT scientists led by an Indian-origin researcher.
The algorithm makes subtle changes to various points on the face to make it more memorable without changing a person's overall appearance.
"We want to modify the extent to which people will actually remember a face," said lead author Aditya Khosla.
"This is a very subtle quality, because we don't want to take your face and replace it with the most memorable one in our database, we want your face to still look like you," said Khosla.
The system could ultimately be used in a smartphone app to allow people to modify a digital image of their face before uploading it to their social networking pages.
To develop the memorability algorithm, the team first fed the software a database of more than 2,000 images. Each of these images had been awarded a "memorability score," based on the ability of human volunteers to remember the pictures.
In this way the software was able to analyse the information to detect subtle trends in the features of these faces that made them more or less memorable to people.
The researchers then programmed the algorithm with a set of objectives - to make the face as memorable as possible, but without changing the identity of the person or altering their facial attributes, such as their age, gender, or overall attractiveness.
When the system has a new face to modify, it first takes the image and generates thousands of copies, known as samples. Each of these samples contains tiny modifications to different parts of the face. The algorithm then analyses how well each of these samples meets its objectives.
Once the algorithm finds a sample that succeeds in making the face look more memorable without significantly altering the person's appearance, it makes yet more copies of this new image, with each containing further alterations.
It then keeps repeating this process until it finds a version that best meets its objectives.
The team then selected photographs of 500 people and modified them to produce both a memorable and forgettable version of each.
When they tested these images on a group of volunteers, they found that the algorithm succeeded in making the faces more or less memorable, as required, in around 75 per cent of cases.
Making a face appear familiar can also make it seem more likable, researchers said.
The study was published in the journal Cognitive Science and Social Psychology.
