The Wearable That Will Tell You How People Are Feeling from the Sound of their Voice

Some people take great pride in their EQ, i.e. their ability to recognise emotions and discern between different feelings, both in themselves and others.  It is a powerful quality to have, and one that embodies to the very essence of being human. But is it possible that a device can detect human emotion better than humans themselves? Possibly, at least for some of us. New wearable tech developed by researchers at MIT can tell you how someone is feeling from the sound of their voice. 

The wearable tech (which looks like a watch) uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect the "tone" of a conversation based on speech patterns.  It is able to classify the overall nature of the person’s emotion based on “historic narration”.  This means the band can spot signs of sadness, anger, boredom and so on purely from a person's voice.

We all know how much the tone of a conversation can drastically affect its emotional intent - conveying sadness, aggression or happiness through nuanced changes in pitch and intonation. While many of us may pick these up naturally throughout life, some of us are not as adept at it, meaning conversations and intentions are misunderstood.

On the phone, particularly on a business phone call when you may not know someone very well, it is often hard to “read” someone given you are unable to see their facial expressions and body language. Apps with this sort of new technology would help business people respond more accurately on important calls, ranging from a big sales deal to an important negotiation. Imagine having an “Emotion Detector” button built into your office phone that provides insight into what the other party may be feeling!  It could prevent business-critical misunderstandings and crossed-wires, and help you to become more successful.

But how can a device accurately figure out how someone is feeling? The researchers that developed the technology gave volunteers a Samsung Simband, which collects so-called "high-resolution" physiological changes. The Simband recorded everything from facial expressions to changes in speech, allowing the researchers to discover how different emotions were physically expressed. Using this data, and the AI, researchers then categorised the results into positive, negative and neutral. These groups were then expanded to contain further variations. For example, 'negative' speech could contain a mix of sadness, loathing, fear or boredom.

AI and wearable devices will possibly change the way we interact, how we react and even how we do business, assuiming apps like this do make their way into business phone systems and the like. But it is hard to believe that wearable devices will be able to consistently read the feelings of a person better than the human they are speaking to, even taking into account some of us have lower EQs.  

Then again, cars now drive themselves and will soon be flying...

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