First ever interactive AUDIO map lets you HEAR over 2000 different sounds like ‘ooh’, ‘aah’ and ‘haha’ so AI can match them to human emotions
- Scientists analysed over 2000 different sounds like oohs, ‘aahs’ and ‘haha’ to match them to human emotions
- Interactive map shows how ‘vocal bursts’ convey twice as much as people originally thought
- Findings show the voice is a much more powerful tool for expressing emotion than previously assumed
- The goal is to make voice controlled devices and robots better able to recognise human emotions by sound
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Scientists have found that involuntary sounds we make when we express shock, elation and fear reveal a lot more about what we feel than previously thought.
An interactive audio map shows more than 2000 sounds for a range of 24 different emotions like fear, surprise (positive and negative), embarrassment, elation and ecstasy.
The results are demonstrated in vivid sound and colour on the map allows you to move the cursor along it and hear the varying sounds.
Spontaneous sounds like ‘woohoo’ to convey excitement and ‘argh’ to show anger say a lot more about what we’re feeling than previously understood, according to new research by Berkeley University.
Scientists conducted a statistical analysis of responses to more than 2,000 nonverbal exclamations known as ‘vocal bursts’ to discover that there are thousands of different sounds for varying types of emotion.
This is twice as many different human emotions than had previously been recorded. Other studies of vocal bursts set the number of recognisable emotions closer to 13.
They analysed more than 2,000 different oohs, aahs, hahas from 56 actors to discover what they mean and how other emotions get mixed in.
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For example, the sound for ecstasy is a mix of 25% Contentment + 25% Ecstasy + 17% Disappointment + 8% Awe + 8% Desire + 8% Guilt + 8% Realisation.
‘This study is the most extensive demonstration of our rich emotional vocal repertoire, involving brief signals of upwards of two dozen emotions as intriguing as awe, adoration, interest, sympathy and embarrassment,’ said study senior author Professor Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center.
Scientists have found that involuntary sounds we make when we express shock, elation and fear reveal a lot more about what we feel than previously thought. An interactive audio map shows more than 2000 sounds for a range of 24 different emotions like fear, surprise (positive and negative), embarrassment, elation and ecstasy
Humans have been using such noises for millions of years because they are a fast and simple way to express emotion which can easily be understood by others, even those who do not speak the same language for instance.
Researcher, Alan Cowen, who designed the audio map, said: ‘Our findings show the voice is a much more powerful tool for expressing emotion than previously assumed.’
The voices on the map were provided by 56 actors and volunteers from countries as wide ranging as Singapore to Kenya who were given scenarios and asked to react to them.
This meant they would scream in fear, gasp in surprise, go ‘huh’ for confusion or ‘ohhh’ for realisation.
The sounds were then used in a worldwide online survey asking 1,000 adults to say what emotion they attached to each noise.
It is hoped the findings could be used to make Alexa or Siri style voice controlled devices and robots better able to recognise human emotions based on sounds.
But it may also provide a way for health professionals working with dementia, autism and other disorders, Cowen added.
He explained: ‘It lays out the different vocal emotions that someone with a disorder might have difficulty understanding.
‘For example, you might want to sample the sounds to see if the patient is recognising nuanced differences between, say, awe and confusion.’
The results were published online in the American Psychologist journal.
WHY ARE PEOPLE SO WORRIED ABOUT AI?
It is an issue troubling some of the greatest minds in the world at the moment, from Bill Gates to Elon Musk.
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk described AI as our ‘biggest existential threat’ and likened its development as ‘summoning the demon’.
He believes super intelligent machines could use humans as pets.
Professor Stephen Hawking said it is a ‘near certainty’ that a major technological disaster will threaten humanity in the next 1,000 to 10,000 years.
They could steal jobs
More than 60 percent of people fear that robots will lead to there being fewer jobs in the next ten years, according to a 2016 YouGov survey.
And 27 percent predict that it will decrease the number of jobs ‘a lot’ with previous research suggesting admin and service sector workers will be the hardest hit.
As well as posing a threat to our jobs, other experts believe AI could ‘go rogue’ and become too complex for scientists to understand.
A quarter of the respondents predicted robots will become part of everyday life in just 11 to 20 years, with 18 percent predicting this will happen within the next decade.
They could ‘go rogue’
Computer scientist Professor Michael Wooldridge said AI machines could become so intricate that engineers don’t fully understand how they work.
If experts don’t understand how AI algorithms function, they won’t be able to predict when they fail.
This means driverless cars or intelligent robots could make unpredictable ‘out of character’ decisions during critical moments, which could put people in danger.
For instance, the AI behind a driverless car could choose to swerve into pedestrians or crash into barriers instead of deciding to drive sensibly.
They could wipe out humanity
Some people believe AI will wipe out humans completely.
‘Eventually, I think human extinction will probably occur, and technology will likely play a part in this,’ DeepMind’s Shane Legg said in a recent interview.
He singled out artificial intelligence, or AI, as the ‘number one risk for this century’.
Musk warned that AI poses more of a threat to humanity than North Korea.
‘If you’re not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea,’ the 46-year-old wrote on Twitter.
‘Nobody likes being regulated, but everything (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc) that’s a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too.’
Musk has consistently advocated for governments and private institutions to apply regulations on AI technology.
He has argued that controls are necessary in order protect machines from advancing out of human control
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