University specialists help AI firm study pandemic

HUMAN BEHAVIOUR specialists from Leeds University have joined forces with artificial intelligence firm Scaled Insights, to analyse people’s attitudes and behaviour in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Scaled Insights, which is a part of Nexus, the university’s innovation hub, has received approval from the Research Ethics committee of the School of Psychology for the survey.

The survey will explore the rapidly changing impact the crisis is having on the way people live.

It is being led by Dr Stuart Flint, associate professor of psychology at the university and Scaled Insights company president.

The survey will provide data on how the general population have responded to the coronavirus outbreak. Findings will be used to inform public health services, charities and government about the impact of covid-19 and the associated impacts.

It could be used to design the provision of support services for people who have been affected.

Dr Flint said: “The research will use natural language processing – a computer’s ability to interpret and analyse human language, including our emotions and sentiment – to identify patterns and better understand how personality can influence our attitudes and behaviours.

“These are very challenging times and the more we can help to inform our policymakers and professionals with human behavioural insights during the pandemic and as we navigate our way out of this crisis, the better we will be able to respond to current concerns and issues and prepare for those we will face in the future.”

Dr Martin Stow, director of Nexus, said: “This work is vital to understand the impact of the pandemic in social terms.”

The survey is open to anyone: https://leedspsychology. eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/ SV_3xXQ2BdxN3ISqRT