1. A personal taste assessment system, comprising: a database comprising trait values for a plurality of candidate items; programming instructions embodied in a non-transitory computer-readable medium that, when executed, are configured to instruct an electronic device to: output a user interface to a person, and receive, via the user interface, a rating set comprising the person's ratings for each of a plurality of rated items; and additional programming instructions stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium that, when executed, are configured to instruct a processor to develop a preference model for the person based on the received ratings by: identifying the candidate items in the database that correspond to the rated items, retrieving, from the database, a value for at least one trait for each of the candidate items that correspond to the rated items, identifying at least one pattern of dependency between at least one of the retrieved trait values and at least one of the received ratings, and determining the preference model, based on the at least one pattern of dependency.