Emotions Analytics

Emotions analytics is a field that studies, identifies and analyzes the full spectrum of human emotions and personality. Emotions analytics deals with unlocking and understanding human moods, attitudes and emotional decision characteristics based on an emotional mapping mode.

Types of analysis

Emotions Analytics contain three core fields:

• Attitude analysis
• Mood analysis
• Type analysis

The Emotions Analytics analysis relies upon the human vocal intonation base (it’s not “what you say” it's “HOW you say it”). The human intonation is based on emotions, mood, and feelings. More than 90% of the total communication impact has to do with voice intonation and body language. Studies in neuropsychology from the last 50 years have demonstrated that body language and vocal intonation have a bigger impact than the actual choice of words.

The Emotions in Emotions Analytics

Emotions are the key to the human decision making processes since decisions and actions are primary irrational and not cognitive.

Recent research shows that the emotional sphere is much quicker than the rational one. A few milliseconds after we come across an object (a person, an object, a word, a picture), a primary emotional response occurs. The psychologist Paul Ekman performed a series of videotaped experiments in which he followed the minor changes in a person’s facial structure when coming across these primal interactions. These experiments showed great emotional responses within the first second of the interaction. Within a few milliseconds changes occurred in movements of facial muscles. Within less than half a second a significant emotional reaction had occurred (i.e. anger, fear, pleasure, sadness). Physiological changes such as an increased heartbeat occurred within fractions of a second. Another research study, performed by John A. Bargh in 1994, dealt with what occurs in the subconscious in the first second. This research showed that within the first milliseconds we not only understand what we see and feel but also decide whether we like it or not. Carol Kinsey Gorman, reported at Forbes about researchers from NYU who found that it takes just 7 seconds to make a first impression.

Emotions in the brain

The limbic system, located above the brainstem, controls the immediate emotional instincts and reactions in the human brain such as self-defense. It receives the information from our sense organs before our thinking brain - the neocortex - has processed it. The rational thought and more complex emotional processes are completed only after a few seconds.

After the rational processing, one of the two following will occur:

1. The person will rationalize his/her immediate emotions and thus justify his/her basic emotional assumption provided by the subconscious in the first milliseconds.
2. A second event occurs. It is also charged with emotion but has the opposite effect, forcing the person to change his/her basic primary emotional response.

An event of the second type occurs rarely and most of the time we go through stages of the first event. Thus, our primal emotional response is highly significant in influencing our attitudes to various objects and situations, since we tend to justify our initial response through rational arguments and do the mapping according to it.

Our primal emotional response works like a classification mechanism. It is devised to determine the extent of benefits or damage that occurs to the person as a result of an encounter with a certain object. Understanding the classification and comparative mechanisms of our target audience enables us to characterize the marketing message addressed to them. This classification is done on the basis of a limited number of criteria due to the extremely short time period from exposure to basic emotional decision. The Neuroscientist Read Montague explains that the brain uses a fast processing system (pre-cognitive processing system) in order to act as an energy efficient organism. Since the human brain consumes about 20% of the energy in the body, it must use “rough” yet cost-effective assessment tools before activating accurate Cognitive tools. The basic model is based on the theory of evolutionary. Evolutionary psychologists that believe only in one criterion - survival [based on Darwin]. Fulton and Maddock presented a model with 11 types of criteria: personal orientation, price orientation, time orientation, circumstances orientation, expectations, territorial survival, [...] survival, physical survival, spiritual survival, adjustment and play.

How does Emotions Analytics work?

The human brain serves as the center of the nervous system. Each hemisphere of the brain interacts primarily with one half of the body and the connections are crossed. The motor connections go from the brain to the spinal cord and the sensory connections go from the spinal cord to the brain. As the center of the nervous system, the brain is in charge of the actions and reactions of the human body and since the limbic system is in charge of the immediate reactions in the brain, and affects or determines the rational thought and more complex emotional processes that follow it, it also affects those same actions and reaction of the body. One such action is the voice. The generation of speech occurs in the brain’s Supplementary Motor Area (SMA) or Anterior Cingulate Cortex and the initiation of speech movements takes place in the Primary Motor Cortex while the latter is corresponding to the Trunk and Orofacial Somatotopic areas. Voice is generated while airflow from the lungs produces adequate vibration of the vocal cords with the additional influence of the vocal tract elements: tongue, palate, cheeks and lips. Voice is composed from sound waves of various frequencies and intensities. The normal voice frequency is: 60 Hz - 18,000 Hz. The normal voice intensity is: 65-96 dB. At each frequency there is a range of voice intensities and the choice of sound wave frequency and intensity is mostly a reflex - instinctive and involuntary.

The Emotions Analytics technology

Once voice is generated and produced, it can be recorded and analysed with the Emotions Analytics technology. The human intonation is decoded using 10–15 seconds of recorded voice segments. The emotional human patterns create 12 universal vocal categories and the emotion base of 36 elements, in all voice frequencies and intensities. The decoding includes hundreds of mood variations (more than 400) and the emotional decision-making model that reassesses and characterizes three basic types of behavior according to the dominant feature:

• Survival type - The survival instinct is based on Darwin's theory.
• Homeostasis type - The homeostasis instinct is parallel to the basic rules of nature, whereby after disruption the system attempts to revert to its previous condition, if possible. This principle was adopted by cybernetics field as the homeostasis principle, “the feedback of maintaining the body’s equilibrium” (William Crown-Gary Schwartz).
• Growth type - The growth instinct appears not only in humans, where it is the basis for development, but also in animals. The D. A. Hebb rat experiment, in contrast with the behaviorist theory, showed that rats choose new and unknown paths the same number of times as they choose known paths, even without being rewarded for it with food.

Further reading

• Mehrabian, A., Silent messages: Implicit communication of emotions and attitudes, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1981.
• Tversky, A,& Kahneman, D.,“Prospect Theory”. Princeton University, 1979.
• Goleman, D., Emotional Intelligence. Bantan Books, New York, 1995.
• Ekman, P., Arguments for the Basic Emotions. “Cognition and Emotion” #6, 1992.
• Bargh, J.A., “First Second: The Preconscious in Social Interactions”. Presented in the meeting of the American Psychological Society, Washington DC., June 1994.
• Montague, R., How we Make Decisions. Plum Book, Penguin F N, 2006.
• Falton R.L., & Maddock, R.C., Marketing the Mind. USA 1995.
• Darwin, C., The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. University of Chicago, New edition, 1965.
• Restak, R.M., The Brain: The Last Frontier. Doubleday & Company, INC, New York, 1979.
• http://www.beyondverbal.com/home-page/