The way men and women smile differs, which allows artificial intelligence (AI) to determine gender based on a smile, found a new British research.
The research, by the University of Bradford, is the first to use the dynamic movement of the smile to automatically distinguish between men and women.
Led by Professor Hassan Ugail, the team mapped 49 features on the face, mainly around the eyes, mouth and nose. Researchers used the features to assess how the face changes by the underlying muscle movements: how much, how far and how fast the different points on the face moved as the smile was formed.
They then tested whether there were noticeable differences between men and women, and found that there were, with women's smiles being wider, the German news agency reported.
According to the Science Daily website, Ugail said: "Our study found that women definitely have broader smiles, expanding their mouth and lip area far more than men."
The team created an algorithm using their analysis and tested it against video footage of 109 people as they smiled. The computer was able to correctly determine gender in 86 percent of cases and the team believe the accuracy could easily be improved.
The purpose of this research is more about trying to improve machine learning capabilities and answering many intriguing questions in the future. One is how the machine might respond to the smile of a transgender person and anther is the impact of plastic surgery on recognition rates.
Ugail explained: “Because this system measures the underlying muscle movement of the face during a smile, we believe these dynamics will remain the same even if external physical features change, following surgery for example.”
He also asserted that this kind of facial recognition could become a next-generation biometric, as it is not dependent on one feature, but on a dynamic that is unique to an individual and would be very difficult to mimic or alter.
