SEATTLE: True love isn't written in the stars, it's all mapped out in a few mathematical equations. Researchers have created a computer model that predicts with 94 per cent accuracy couples for whom "forever" isn't going to last.
The model's creators, psychologist John Gottman and mathematicians James Murray and Kristin Swanson describe their number cruncher for the lovelorn as a "Dow Jones Industrial Average for marital conversation".
Details of the work were delivered yesterday on the opening day of the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, which brings together a curious public and leading international researchers, who give talks on their work. It continues until next Monday.
"The mathematics we came up with is trivial but the model is astonishingly accurate," Prof Murray, a professor of mathematics at the University of Washington and Oxford University, said. It can make predictions about the long-term prognosis for any marriage simply by observing the first few moments of a conversation between a couple about an area of marital contention.
The researchers developed the model using data collected from hundreds of videotaped conversations between couples in Gottman's laboratory at the University of Washington. Physiological data, including pulse rate, was also collected, and taken together the information reflects underlying problems the couple may not realise they have.
"Before this model was developed divorce prediction was not accurate and we had no idea how to analyse what we call the masters and disasters of marriage - those long-term happily married and divorced couples," Prof Murray said. "The maths is so visual and graphical that it allows us to visualise what happens when two people talk to each other."
The key to the model is a comparison of the ratio of positive to negative interactions during a talk about something just right for a dispute.
The "magic" ratio of good to bad interactions is 5:1, the researchers say. Score higher than this and things will probably be OK. Score lower and you might want to reconsider spending all that loot on sweets, flowers and cards on a hopeless quest.