Why Meghan Markle's face is more trustworthy than the Queen's

An algorithm says Meghan's face is more trustworthy than the Queen's. Photo / Getty Images

Meghan Markle has a more "trustworthy" face than the Queen, a new study claims.

Experts from PSL Research University made an algorithm to scan faces in portraits and photographs to determine the person's trustworthiness, looking at changes in portraits over the past 500 years.

They used the tool to find that as living standards improved since 1500 AD, so did the trustworthiness of the people in the portraits, according to the Daily Mail.

French researchers compared some famous faces to historical portraits, including comparing the current Queen and Meghan Markle to Elizabeth I.

According to the algorithm, Meghan appeared over three times as trustworthy as Elizabeth I, while the Queen was one and a half times more trustworthy.

The tool doesn't assess trustworthiness itself, but rather the qualities the subject of a portrait wanted to show in their image, the authors said.

"It is possible that Megan Markle is not a trustworthy person, but on average her appearance in her portrait makes her look trustworthy," author Nicolas Baumard said.

"This is probably a quality that is very important to her, probably more than Queen Elizabeth I, who does not smile in her portraits," he told MailOnline.

The study also compared photos of US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden, revealing that Biden appeared 300 per cent more trustworthy than the current president.

And the algorithm also found that Barack Obama appeared more trustworthy than Vladimir Putin when the two leaders were compared.

Meghan's appearance in photos makes her look more trustworthy, researchers say. Photo / Getty Images

Authors created a 3D avatar of a face to test the algorithm on different levels of trustworthiness rather than using real people, as this gave them more control over the facial muscles and expressions.

From the years 1500 to 2000, portraits showed their subjects looking more trustworthy as the years went on.

This was based on changes in the contractions of the facial muscles seen in the portraits, and was linked to improving living standards.

"The origins of trust are unclear, partly because changes in social trust are difficult to quantitatively document over time," the team said.

"We tested whether higher GDP per capita was associated with the rise of trustworthiness in portraits.

"The observed evolution of trustworthiness displays cannot be reduced to a simple cultural accumulation that would have led to the development of painting techniques making sitters look more trustworthy."