Voice Analysis Technology - Background
Several studies in recent years have found that emotionally engaged consumers are worth more than twice as much as highly pleased customers. They are more likely to return; therefore, their lifetime value is higher. So, how can we make that emotional connection? It turns out that nonverbal communication accounts for more than 90% of emotional communication. Body language, micro expressions, and emotional input are all important, which indicates that these nonverbal aspects are quite essential. The EDP (Emotion Detection platform) is built on Layered Voice Analysis; a patented set of voice parameters that have been discovered to correspond with major human emotions through study, and may be used in various combinations to detect false intentions in ``real life`` circumstances. These voice factors were discovered using a database of audio files recorded in a variety of situations, including police interrogations, call centres, and controlled tests.
The Technology has been refined since then in collaboration with professionals from other fields (psychology, criminology, phonetics, psychiatry, mathematics and others). LVA employs a proprietary mathematical approach to detect various patterns and abnormalities in speech flow and classify them as stress, excitement, confusion, and other key emotional states that have been discovered to be highly connected with these emotions over the course of 24 years of research. The technology is a fully unique that has no resemblance to any previous vocal analysis technologies or uses any previously known approach for detecting anomalies present in voice. LVA technology does not analyse voice ``micro-tremors`` (8--14 Hz) and can be captured even via phone lines and with standard commercially available microphones.
The core technology has been adapted to meet the needs of a wide range of professional users, from formal police investigations to security clearances, vetting and recruitment needs to personality tests, and call centre quality monitoring to intelligence gathering and lawful interception multi-channel analysis. Many of the parameters used by the technology are novel to phonetics, and they focus on the uncontrollable and yet phonetically unexplained properties of the human voice. By identifying hidden emotional indicators in the user’s speech, LVA technology can help you better grasp his or her mental state and emotional reaction at any given time while he is engaging with your Brand. The Emotion Detection Platform (EDP) detects numerous sorts of stress, cognitive processes, and emotional reactions in the voice, which are represented in various subtle of user’s voice. This information reveals how your subject thinks, what bothers him, what excites him, what parts of his speech he is unsure of, what questions take more of his attention, and what areas appear to be sensitive topics for him.
Human Speaking Mechanism
- Due to the amount of muscles, the involvement of our internal process and the ways in which they must be synced, the human speaking mechanism is one of the most intricate activities the human body conducts.
- Air is pushed upward from the lungs into the vocal cords when a person talks. As a result, sound is produced when the vocal cords vibrate at a given frequency. The air continues to move up toward the mouth, where the tongue, teeth, and lips manipulate it to create sound streams that we recognize as words or sentences.
- The brain takes the lead by orchestrating the entire process and monitoring what is spoken to guarantee that the sound you make is what your brain meant, is heard at the appropriate volume by the intended listener, and is further accepted by the listener in the manner you planned. The LVA Technology properties focus on the patterns and irregularities in the speech flow rather than the content of what your subject is saying or the language employed
The “Emotional diamond”
- The Emotional Diamond concept was coined to visualise and comprehend the human emotional reaction complexity as detected by the LVA. It is composed of eight wings: "Energy" at the top, "Stress" at the bottom, "Logic and confidence" on the left, "Emotion" on the right, and four more indicators reflecting levels of "Passion," "Uneasy," "Mental Effort," and "Concentration" on the right (these are only the main 8 of the 14 emotional states LVA can detect).
- The Emotional Diamond's basic idea is that there are no good or bad emotions because they are all context driven. When addressing threatening occurrences, for example, we anticipate to observe stressed reactions, whereas when discussing prospects and opportunities, we expect to see energetic and passionate reactions. Certain features can be easily detected when evaluating emotional reactions over time, and they can inform us about the true nature of the examined party.
LVA Analysis Process
- The Technology is based on three fundamental formulas that extract more than 151 parameters from each audio segment of 1.7 sec using unique signal-processing methods. These are further divided into 14 different basic emotion groups. This information can be used to forecast the likelihood of false or fraudulent intent in a sentence or for any other psychological study using statistical learning algorithms.
- LVA contains two fundamental formulas that extract more than 120 parameters from each voice segment using unique signal-processing algorithms.
- Several "Final Analysis" formulas can be applied to the emotional parameter data depending on the goal of the analysis: "Emotional Diamond Profile," "Lie Stress" ("Risk Level" analysis), "stimulation Level," "Attention Level," "Anger or satisfaction detection," "Personality," and other methods for veracity assessments.
LVA and "lie detection"
- Lying is the product of a complex logical process carried out with a specific and major goal in mind. One person may lie to defend himself from harm, while another may lie for financial gain or even to create a joke. Professionals in the field of lie detection understand that there is no such thing as a "true" lie detector because lying isn't an uniform reaction that occurs at the same moment every time. Even the most well-known "Lie Detector," the polygraph, can only work well in its pre-defined settings and environment. Connecting a polygraph to someone watching a video or doing any kind of physical activity will, of course, provide useless findings.
- Because of the wide range of motivations and intentions, there is no fixed set of physiological or psychological traits that distinguish "lies" from "truth."
- The Technology, on the other hand, can detect a sudden change in emotional reactions (a "leap out of homeostasis") and help you, the expert user, expose the risk at the elementary level and guides you to the specific areas to reveal the truth.
Security vs. Commercial uses
- Intentions and emotional settings fluctuate depending on the situation, therefore it is only natural to feel significantly less at ease (or "stressed") when being interrogated by a cop than when conversing with friends. Various emotions and internal processes come into play in such unique emotional contexts.
- LVA also gives you the ability to dig further into each detected piece of data. LVA technology can be used in real-time (for a basic overview of any subject/case/suspect/witness) as well as offline (for more in-depth research), with data from nearly any source.
- LVA-based tools can be customised for a variety of expected work environments, and have a built-in system for automatically adjusting sensitivity to match various needs.
- While our personal-use products use the commercial level of our voice analysis technology (SENSETM) to provide both detailed and generalised data, LVA uses a dynamic range of sensitivities to automatically zero in on those emotional indications that are more relevant to the formal investigative procedure.
- The core technology focuses more on its unique skills to explore and understand diverse emotions and personality features than prior versions. Commercial entities, such as call centres, service assurance, HR recruiting, marketing research, and even medical assessment processes for diverse reasons, employ LVA's emotion detection capabilities today. For the first time, the application of LVA in these fields opens the door to a wealth of data and the capacity to measure and grade different emotions, as well as track them back to the exact moment and cause of manifestation.
