Ever wondered whether brain science can help you get lucky on Tinder? So did a team of neuroscientists from the Netherlands. They let 28 young adults swipe left and right on Tinder – all while measuring their eye movements and brain activity.
“We were amazed by what we found,” says Tom van Bommel, research director at ST&T Research, a neuromarketing agency. “First of all, brain activity can actually predict which photos will get lots of swipes – and which ones won’t.” Attractive pictures fire up brain activity in the left prefrontal cortex. “This is exactly the same neural pattern we see light up when people gaze upon delicious food or a must-have cool gadget.”
Of course, what Tinder users really want to know is what exactly makes some pictures more alluring than others. The researchers dug deeper in their data to unearth common factors of attraction. What they found is great news for anyone wanting to increase their dating stats. Our brains love one very specific thing that you can easily manipulate yourself: simplicity.
“We used an algorithm to calculate the overall workload of each picture on the brain. We found that the harder a brain has to work to make sense of a photo, the less attractive a person became.” Here are 5 easy tricks for brain-friendly Tinder photos, male and female:
1- Increase the contrast between yourself and the background. The brain hates light hair and skin against a light background. Don’t want to shoot new pictures? Just darken or lighten the background with a touch of Photoshop to complement your colors and lighting to push yourself center stage.
2- Go for a solid background, without a lot of stuff going on. Backgrounds containing many colors and shapes will soak you out of the foreground. Beware of city streets.
3- Don’t show other people in your primary picture. Not even your best friend. The brain needs to understand in a millisecond who it’s all about.
4- Occupy the majority of the frame. Photos showing the upper third of your body work best. Don’t pull the lens too far (whole body) or too close (face only).
5- Never – we repeat: never – wear sunglasses on your primary picture. And don’t eat a hamburger, cute as it may seem. Nothing should obscure your face.
This study marks the first time in history that Tinder attraction is investigated through neuroscience. “Our day to day job is to use brain imaging to measure people’s response to new products, tv commercials and websites. But after one of our colleagues joined Tinder after a breakup, we thought it would be fun to discover what exactly happens in people’s brains while Tindering.”
Now, go put this scientific edge into practice. Happy Tindering!
