System Recognizes Emotions In People's Voices

cylonlover writes "Automated telephone services may get slightly less annoying thanks to research being carried out at Spain's Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and Universidad de Granada. A team of scientists from those institutions has created a computer system that is able to recognize the emotional state of a person speaking to it, so that it can alter its behavior to make things less stressful."

Comments

Or you could lower the stress from the start

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not start out with the less stressful option, just saying...

even easier

[erase]

just have the system scan for curse words. easier than detecting emotion, and probably more accurate to determine when people are hating the IVR.

My superior algorithm:

[Zero__Kelvin]

If (person_calling)
connect_to(actual_human);

Re:My superior algorithm:

[markdavis]

Not on many of the systems I encounter. It is so typical to have a poorly designed menu that does NOT offer choices that match why I am calling. When no choice is valid and I resort to "0":

"Sorry, that is not a valid option"

And then it repeats the 30 seconds worth of choices yet again. I have also had systems hang up on me after not answering the way they want.

And of course the wonderful systems that ask for all kinds of information and then you FINALLY get a human and they ask for all the same damn information AGAIN.

Re:My superior algorithm:

[Paul Slocum]

I think it's more like:

if( person_calling_wants_to_pay_more )
connect_to( actual_human );
else
connect_to( cheap_automated_call_system )

best way to reduce stress

[Ralph Spoilsport]

have a competent human answer the fucking phone.

Re:best way to reduce stress

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't have said it better. If the system can respond by making it less stressful for the caller, why not start out at the least stressful configuration to begin with? What possible motivation could they have for it not being less stressful from the start?

Easier solution

[Anonymous Coward]

How about just using the low-stress behavior ALL the time?

Re:Easier solution

[migla]

There was some similar story a while back about how technology like this could be used at 911, to assert whether the person calling was in an emergency.

I would hate that, since I've noticed that while I'm a bit of a nervous person generally, when I've been in serious situations, like cutting myself badly and blood starting to gush out or being held at knife point, an unusual calm has descended upon me.

Re:Adjusts its behaviour to be less stressful

[ysth]

Because "don't stress out the human" might be actually really unhelpful stuff like slowing down speech, presenting fewer options at a time, or even fewer options at all.

Re:Don't force us to use the phone in the first pl

[kelemvor4]

Given the widespread availability of the Internet, the telephone is really quite a useless device now, especially for business purposes.

When dealing with any business or institution, it is often much easier and much more effective to use a web app of some sort. These kind of apps work perfectly fine for most people, and they avoid a lot of the confusion and annoyance that can happen when having to use a telephone-based system. In the remote chance that the user needs to deal with a live person in realtime, there are many chat systems available that work just fine.

Spoken communication is a relic of the past. It is usually no faster than using a web app or other written communication, and most of the time is much slower and much more prone to inaccuracies creeping in. In the vast majority of cases, the phone shouldn't even be an option. If it is, it should merely be the last resort.

If that were accurate, those giant call centers that companies employ in addition to their websites would go largely unused. Turns out, lots of folks prefer to talk to someone. Just because you don't does not mean that it's a "relic of the past". While I like to do business on the web, I will most definitely avoid shopping with a company if I can't find telephone contact information easily. Web stuff works great when things are going smoothly, but typically the moment you have a hiccup in the standard process, you need to get someone on the phone to fix it. IVRU's are just a way to waste your time while waiting to be helped, so I see this effort as a mostly empty gesture. As GP said, why not start out with the less stressful option in the first place.

Alter its behavior?

[mrquagmire]

Unless someone can make voice recognition actually works no amount of behavior altering is going to help. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem like voice recognition software has come a whole lot farther than where it was when I first started playing with it over a decade ago.

Re:Don't force us to use the phone in the first pl

[mug funky]

yes, because all official websites are well designed, and provide many options outside the normal list that can tailor to the needs of every single user.

sometimes a second brain is needed in a transaction.

Re:Don't force us to use the phone in the first pl

[Anonymous Coward]

I intentionally do business with companies that don't employ long, painful, circular IVR. I simply won't do business with a site that doesn't have a phone number.

As you said, the web is great if you're trying to buy something. Beyond that, web interaction is mostly garbage. Many companies don't provide direct email support anymore. If they do, it usually takes 3 days to hear back because email is a nice... leisurely... game... of... ping... pong... that... they... answer... when... it's... convenient... for... them.

Those horrible IVR's are used to deflect you back to the web. Not because their web resources are better than their people, but because humans on the phone are an expensive and time consuming resource they don't want you to use.

So it really is a place to separate yourself from the rest. If I call your number and actually get a person that can fix problems, you're head and shoulders above your competition.