Are eyes truly the windows to the soul? There may be some truth behind that old saying, as scientists have released the results of a study that used artificial intelligence to track the eye movements of students and use the information to determine their personality types. It’s not quite mind-reading, but the new technology may be able to accurately predict certain characteristics within the subjects. Via Mashable, researchers from the University of South Australia, the University of Stuttgart, Flinders University, and other institutes released their findings earlier this month that may shed some light on the connection between personalities and eye movements. The report indicates that AI successfully predicted whether its subjects were agreeable, conscientious, extroverted, or neurotic.
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How did the AI come to these conclusions? The program found multiple correlations between eye movement and certain personality types. For example, neurotic subjects were said to “blink faster,” while curious people move their eyes around more than the norm. Conscientious individuals experience greater pupil size changes than average, while open-minded people have a tendency to “stare at abstract images for longer periods of time.” As mentioned in the report, the eye movements themselves don’t indicate a personality type; they are simply tendencies that were identified during the course of this study.
The technology is far from perfected—there were additional traits that the study determined the AI could not identify via eye-movement, notably openness to new experiences—but it could potentially be used to help computers “read” the personality type of a person and react accordingly. As noted by Mashable, there could also be privacy concerns if companies use the technology to create ads that are far more personalized than ever before.
How do you feel about the new eye-reading technology determining your personality type? Let us know in the comment section below!
Image: Warner Bros.
