Thursday, December 15, 2005
Mona Lisa Smile
From today's electronic WSJ...
Mona Lisa 83% Happy
For some 500 years, the face of the woman in Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa has been a mystery. Was she happy? Angry? Afraid? Actually, she was all of the above, and more, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Amsterdam, who used new emotion-recognition software to determine that the woman in the painting, believed to be the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful, 2% angry, 1% neutral. And she was not surprised at all. The researchers admitted that, since their software can't detect more subtle emotions, the test was not quite scientific. But they said the technology was still in its infancy. "Who knows -- in 30, 40, 50 years, maybe they'll be able to tell what was on her mind," one researcher told the Associated Press.
Mona Lisa 83% Happy
For some 500 years, the face of the woman in Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa has been a mystery. Was she happy? Angry? Afraid? Actually, she was all of the above, and more, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Amsterdam, who used new emotion-recognition software to determine that the woman in the painting, believed to be the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful, 2% angry, 1% neutral. And she was not surprised at all. The researchers admitted that, since their software can't detect more subtle emotions, the test was not quite scientific. But they said the technology was still in its infancy. "Who knows -- in 30, 40, 50 years, maybe they'll be able to tell what was on her mind," one researcher told the Associated Press.
