Conversation Analytics

A few weeks ago in class, we discussed a bank of therapy session recordings that was available to us from a past study that was conducted by one of my professors. Unfortunately for the lazy researcher, the recordings were not transcribed. I remembered my days as a research assistant, transcribing interviews, and vowed that I will transcribe no more. 

So I wrote NICE Systems, a company that develops client relations software (among other things). Already 10 years ago I visited a presentation by their R&D department that described their ability to analyze a conversation structurally, and even recognize some words here and there. I am sure the capabilities have improved since.

I wish I could extract quantitative data from such an audio archive and be able to cross that data with therapy results that were measured by questionnaires during the original research.

They say Google Chrome's next edition is going to have speech recognition in Hebrew, that could be a brilliant update... but didn't find anything ready for use right now. Still experimenting with partial stuff I found though.

BTW - Here's something about an app by Madrid Uni about emotions recognition in conversation, based on speech rate and pitch and volume. They used something called fuzzy logic that uses relative values in conditions in order to draw conclusions. 

OCD Manager

I've just finished playing with a free account on MockFlow.com and made a mockup sketch of a diagnostic app for OCD.

Often in class we've talked about people suffering from OCD as lacking a sense of accomplishment for tasks, so they redo them, making a ritual around them to try and make it feel right. My teacher, Prof Dar, would say that in such a case even love becomes a question of accomplishment - how do I know that I love someone? Is it because we're married? Because she makes me laugh? In this way life is reduced to something we would expect to find on The SIMS, Second Life, or our Facebook life - places filled with events that replace authentic feelings. How do you know you love on FAcebook? By your Likes and your relationship status. Well, then maybe people suffering from OCD can benefit from social gaming dynamics in the same way.

The OCD manager is meant to facilitate a common CBT homework assignment - keeping record of rituals and repeating thoughts. It could also help people suffering from OCD manage their rituals, by logging what they've just done, but much cooler would be if reducing life into events, would emulate the lacking sense of accomplishment.

Tell me what you think :)

http://www.slideshare.net/orushka/ocd-manager

I saw some guy stole my name for the app and is now selling his understanding of it in itunes. It's not as good as my idea but still, may he die of OCD.