Software-based evaluation of human attractiveness: A pilot study

Statement of problem The difficulty of evaluating esthetics in an unbiased way may be overcome by using automated software applications. Purpose The purpose of this study was to assess the use of a smartphone application as an objective tool for evaluating attractiveness and to evaluate its potential in dentistry. Material and methods Ten white participants (mean age ±SD, 42.1 ±22.6 years) were randomly chosen, and frontal facial pictures of each participant were made. The smartphone application PhotoGenic was used to evaluate the attractiveness of the participants. For comparison, 100 randomly (age>16 years, social environment of the research team) selected raters were asked to evaluate the same participants. The influence of participants’ facial expression, age, and sex as well as the raters’ age, sex, and occupation was investigated. Statistical analyses (linear mixed models with random intercepts; least square means, 95% confidence interval; P