CAN A SOFTWARE PROGRAM ANALYZE MY PERSONALITY?
A new technology can compile a personality profile on the basis of a speech sample. The amazing part: It is said to be about 90% as accurate as several sessions with a psychologist. Sounds unbelievable? We observed the efforts of two people who tried out
The id analysis experiment
All you need to analyze human DNA is one hair with the root attached. All we need to analyze the human character is a person’s voice.” This assertion put forth by Dirk Gratzel, the man who helped developed the speech-analysis software Precire, sounds audacious. When id’s pair of subjects began the speech-analysis test by listening and responding to the computerized voice on the phone, the whole thing seemed quite absurd. For a quarter of an hour, each person responded to such trivial questions as how do you spend a typical Sunday, what are your hobbies, and what trips have you taken. But what they didn’t realize is the software is designed to do just one thing: get the test subject talking so the program can analyze speech, discern the psychologically relevant patterns, and decode them. The actual content a subject reveals is of no particular significance. When performing its analysis, Precire will also take other aspects into account: Speech rhythms, speed, emphasis, sentence length, and choice of words are parameters that tell the program how people tick, what really motivates them, and just how resistant they are to stress. In exactly 0.0174 seconds, the program had decoded the speech sample—without the subject having the slightest idea what was going on. But how does this technology work?
WHAT CAN YOUR VOICE REVEAL ABOUT YOUR PERSONALITY?
Everything got started back in 2012. Lawyer and headhunter Dirk Gratzel was running a consulting company for sports organizations and businesses. While he and his partners, Christian Greb and Mario Reis, were analyzing the various communications among coaches and athletes, they became aware of the relationship between superficial speech and its deeper meaning. “That’s when we decided to develop a technology to deal with the interface between communication, psychology, linguistics, and machine learning,” says Greb, a psychologist. The company has its headquarters in Aachen, Germany, and has a U.S. office in Seattle. Gratzel, Greb, and Reis head up a team of 30 specialists conducting the world’s largest study of speech psychology. So far they’ve used questionnaires and interviews to psychologically analyze 5,500 test subjects. Gratzel and his associates have also recorded a speech sample from every participant. The resulting profiles served to provide the basis for developing Precire. The software breaks each recorded voice down into half a million points of data and searches for recurring patterns. Then the results from the questionnaires, interviews, and voice recordings are combined to search for matches and differences. For instance, does the speech of individuals who display a particularly high degree of curiosity indicate that they share other traits in common? They’ve discovered that it is, indeed, possible to assign each distinct speech pattern to a specific character trait. “Machine learning has enabled the program to work with the countless data points that are found in spoken communications and link them to personality,” explains Greb. Another fascinating aspect: Gratzel says up to a third of the conclusions arrived at by Precire are completely new to the test subjects themselves.
HOW CAN PRECIRE BE MORE OBJECTIVE THAN A PSYCHOLOGIST?
The profiles that Precire creates are extremely detailed and surprisingly accurate. “Our accuracy is over 85%. Compared with other psychological methods, that’s extremely high,” says Gratzel, who suspects he know why. “Unlike a questionnaire, our software provides objective results. It is very difficult for someone to consciously control his or her speech for longer than a few minutes at a time.”
“What we’re doing affects everyone. It will change the world.” DIRK GRATZEL, COFOUNDER OF PRECIRE TECHNOLOGIES
A generated profile is broken down into six different categories. The first focuses on the formal criteria of the speech sample. Precire does not just analyze the length of sentences and the number of words, for example; it also considers such aspects as how the voice varies in pitch and volume, the use of pauses, and the linguistic variety of the words a speaker says, which are depicted as a cloud tag.
In the second category, cognitive processes in the speech sample are analyzed along with the emotions that are conveyed. Does the speaker often use expressions that are associated with obligation and necessity (I must, I should), for example? Or does he or she use lots of “linguistic softeners” to relativize a statement (perhaps, a little bit, in my opinion), or words that intensify (very, absolutely, totally)? The emotional analysis concentrates on positive and negative components of the speech sample—words that convey a certain emotionality. These may include words that are positively weighted (home, vacation, sunshine, warmth) or those with negative weight
(stress, strain, death, conflict) but they may also be associated with optimism
(achievement, goal). “This illustrates some of the numerous possibilities of our word choice,” explains Precire psychologist Philipp Grochowski. “By adding certain words to a statement a substantial motivational effect can be produced.” And such an effect is not only exerted on the listener but on the speaker as well, including the speaker’s own thoughts and attitude toward life. Compare the statements “I have to go shopping now” and “I want to go shopping now.” The first sentence expresses compulsion and necessity, but the second sentence sounds positive and optimistic.
A 15-minute speech sample can also reveal a lot about our personal resources. Comparing test results against a so-called resilience index not only reveals how comparatively well we deal with our challenges and problems; it also indicates the role work and leisure play in our lives. “In analyzing a profile built from a speech sample, Precire is able to detect the connections between acute levels of stress and the recovery from stress,” explains Grochowski. That makes it possible to gauge, for instance, the extent of a test subject’s willingness to go the extra mile and his ability to distance himself from his work.
Another category of analysis deals with personal qualities and character traits (e.g., curiosity, inclination to take risks, emotional stability) revealed by the speech sample. These may recur in the conclusions and could suggest where the test subject may have room for improvement (avoiding filler words or increasing linguistic diversity and complexity, for example). Ultimately, what makes Precire different from the current conventional speech-analysis programs? “It identifies relationships between speech and personality that would not otherwise be apparent,” explains Grochowski, who illustrates the point with a hypothetical example: “If someone with a very high degree of curiosity puts a long pause at the end of every third sentence, Precire automatically recognizes that.”
“We consider the algorithmic evaluation of people to be particularly problematic with regard to matters of employment and insurance.” DANIEL STRUNK, SPOKESPERSON FOR NORTH RHINE-WESTPHALIA’S COMMISSIONER FOR DATA PROTECTION AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
HOW MANY COMPANIES ARE ALREADY USING PRECIRE?
The future could belong to Precire. Several years ago the management consulting firm Mckinsey predicted Precire would be expanding so much over the next 10 years that its sales figures would be comparable to those of Volkswagen. And such a goal does not seem unrealistic considering that the software can not only analyze the spoken word but is also able to draw conclusions from an email about a customer’s interest or frustration and then offer up recommendations for improving contact with customers. “Not everyone is satisfied to receive a voucher as compensation for bad service. There are times when a clear explanation or an apology produces more satisfaction,” says Dirk Gratzel.
Given all of the software’s potential applications, it is not very surprising that more than 200 big corporations have inquired about the product. Top police officials have also undergone training in using Precire. “At present, more than 50 large companies have become clients,” says Christian Greb. One of them is multinational human resources consulting firm Randstad, which has used the software in more than 1,000 instances to evaluate job applicants. This example raises the question of whether programs such as Precire will lead in the long run to companies making hiring decisions entirely based on computer analysis.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS AND DANGERS OF PRECIRE?
Many privacy groups have reacted skeptically to these developments and claimed that such use of speech data would constitute a violation of one’s personality rights. “We consider the algorithmic evaluation of people to be particularly problematic with regard to matters of employment and insurance,” maintains Daniel Strunk, a spokesperson for North Rhine–westphalia’s Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. However Christian Greb insists potential employees will be clearly informed about the speechanalysis software and specifically asked about their willingness to take the test before it is administered. In addition, Precire is just one piece of the process in selecting personnel and will never replace all the others, explains Precire psychologist Anja Linnenbürger. Still, even Precire’s developers cannot dispel all of the misgivings about the software: What if a large corporation were to misuse the analysis technology by recording and evaluating an interviewee without the potential employee’s knowledge? And what if personality profiles were to fall into the wrong hands because of computer hacking or theft of data? The consequences of such scenarios cannot be forecast by even the most intelligent software program…
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Up until now Precire has primarily been made available to companies, but its makers are reaching out to the private market. For more information: www.precire.com