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

Trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

That could become the ultimate trolling device!

Re:Trolling

[ae1294]

Do you understand the motherfucking words that are coming out of my motherfucking mouth bitch?

emotional state: JOY +3

Or not...

[NoobixCube]

Caller: Oh it's another damn machine.
IVR: Do not take that tone, please, sir or madam.
Caller: WHAT tone?
IVR: Please remain calm, and speak clearly.
Caller: I AM CALM, DAMN IT!!!

Re:Or not...

[plover]

My favorite:

"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve your life, please press 3."

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.

Re:even easier

[dissy]

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

You would be shocked at the number of IVR systems that currently do this.
"Fuck" is the new "mash zero"

At least the ones I am forced to use on a regular basis most seem to support swear words as valid options. Or at least "fuck" and "shit", haven't tried any others.
On the non-regular calls I only try this trick when my intent is to trigger "Press zero to speak with a representative", seems to be roughly 50% success rate in my semi-limited experiences.

The only system I can think of that did not support it was my last bank. However their system couldn't be interrupted with menu presses, so you had to wait until it was finished speaking or it would ignore touch tones. Also hitting zero did not take you to a human, but back to the main menu to start over.
I'm pretty sure they purposely designed it to make you scream "fuck!" a lot and that was listed in the design requirements specified by the customer :P

In closing, hey Huntington if you're listening, you suck balls.
For everyone else, give it a try next you need to press zero anyway. If nothing else, it's pretty amusing.

Another fine product...

[Macgrrl]

... from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

My superior algorithm:

[Zero__Kelvin]

If (person_calling)
connect_to(actual_human);

Re:My superior algorithm:

[tisepti]

Try gethuman.com. It doesn't always have the company you need to call listed but has helped me deal with companies that ... forget to make sure yo have an easy way to get though the menu.

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.

Old news

[jtownatpunk.net]

Is this one of those "On this day in history..." stories? Because analyzing caller voice patterns for stress has been SOP for the big boys for years. A pretty common way to get out of the voice prompts and to a person who will likely be competent enough to help you is to swear profusely at the voice recognition system. You'll then often be passed to a senior CSR who can get shit done. The catch is that they're authorized to hang up on you more quickly than a regular rep if you continue to swear once they're on the line.

I guess the news here is that the existing technology is being used to present automated scripts tailored to the individual caller.

Re:Old news

[blunttrauma]

I was trying to call Comcast once because the evidently cancelled my automatic billing and were now going to disconnect my internet service. When I called and the automated menu hell prompts started, I said "billing" The system replied "Sorry, I didn't get that" I let out an exasperated "Fuck". The system responded "I understand you want to talk to Billing, if this is correct, press 1" Pretty damn cool.

Re:Old news

[anglico]

I agree, the first time I used Fed Ex's menu for a sample return I got frustrated and 'growled' in frustration and it automatically connected me to someone who could understand why I didn't have an account number and what I needed. Of course the next few times I called I waited (just in case they added that option) and when I didn't get that option, I did the same thing, and luckily it worked.

Easier solution

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Dave...

[ysth]

I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.

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

[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.