AI Mapping Moods

We took at cut at the basic idea to determine changes in moods that might indicate purchases.  And also mapping to actual behavior.   Note pharmaceutical use implications.

Can AI Map Our Moods?

By Stanford University, February 4, 2021, in ACM

Machine-learning models can map a persons mood swings and volatility from week to week, according to a new study.

Researchers from Stanford University and the University of Michigan developed a machine learning model that can infer a person's mood from their Facebook posts.

The model was trained using public Facebook postings of close to 3,000 volunteers from an earlier study, then tested on a different set of posts from 640 Facebook users who posted an average of 17 times weekly over 28 weeks. This dataset of 18,000 person-weeks, the largest ever compiled on weekly emotional dynamics, has been made public.

The patterns revealed by the model aligned with the predictions based on classical in-person psychological studies.

Said Stanford's Johannes Eichstaedt, "If this kind of approach is used ethically and legally, with strict privacy protection, we could someday have ways to computationally understand the mind. It could help with diagnosis and pharmaceutical evaluation. It could also help us track the psychological impact of traumatic societal events, such as the Covid pandemic."

From Stanford University

Kinds and Channels of Chat for Customers

Good thoughts about what customers need and the variety of chat channels.

Live chat and customer anxiety   By Niamh Reed in Customerthink

Customers come in all moods and mindsets. Some are confident, some are angry, some are calm, some are anxious. And when it comes to customer service, some contact channels are better suited to different moods than others.

Customer anxiety, in particular, is tricky to manage. Service practices that work for most customers may not create good experiences for anxious ones. One of the best channels for catering to customer anxiety is live chat software.

Here’s why.  .... "

Conversations in Assistants with Mood

Interesting points are made.  Though the analysis of mood from text is fairly straightforward, wondering if there are liabilities once one classifies mood in real time?  Good interview:

Google Home's Assistant could one day know your mood. Take that, Alexa in CNet  By Richard Nieva

Google Home's Assistant could one day know your mood.  
In an exclusive interview, a top Google exec says the AI could eventually recognize if you're frustrated or pick up conversations where you left off.  ... " 

Mood Science and the Internet of Things

Anyone who works with advertising and marketing ideas wants to measure and influence aspects of mood in  a number of context.   Much has been made of neuromarketing ideas in recent years.   'Things'  that can  influence mood could be packaging, product, context, promotion, shelf and fixture.

And things that influence, can also measure and interconnect.   Measuring means data you can leverage it.  We mocked up a number of related ideas, starting with the simplest RFID tags.   Consider links with Beacons too.    Lots of interesting thoughts in the article linked to below.

These IoT Sensors Want to Know How You Feel – And Maybe Even Change Your Mood  Posted by William Vorhies  

Summary:  Sensors that know how you feel?  Sensors that want to change the way you feel?  When did that happen and better yet how?  ... 

Mood Science
" ... I’ve been tracking the uses of IoT sensors particularly those with human interaction (think Fitbit) but I didn’t see the big picture until I came across this article “Design for Mood: Twenty Activity-Based Opportunities to Design for Mood Regulation” by Pieter M. A. Desmet, a member of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology.  This is one of those articles you know you should trust because it contains a reference bibliography of 169 learned articles.

For the most part it seems that in academic circles the desire to determine how to ‘regulate mood’ is pretty benign and generally couched in terms like improving subjective well-being.  After all who doesn’t want an extra helping of well-being? .... " 

Emotion Sniffing from a Phone

In Fastcompany: This could be a very useful thing to understand how people are reacting to an environment.  Pay people to use the idea.  And their phone is always there.  Once again an interesting stream of data.  " ... Rice University scientists, working with Microsoft Research, have created something rather surprising--a long-term-mood detecting device that can ascertain a user's emotions with up to 93% accuracy. What's more, there's no EEG device in use here, no blood pressure sensors. It's all down to simple smartphone data analysis. .... The MoodScope system is a two-parter, with a smartphone acting as a data-collection device and a cloud-based model. Since we take our smartphones everywhere and increasingly use them to surf the web, engage in social media, use apps and so on, they are a fabulous tool for this purpose. ... " 

Microsoft Research Tracks Phone Mood

A fairly detailed article on work MS is doing to track the mood of people using a smartphone.  Called MoodScope. Of interest to enterprises that would like another measure of non conscious interactions with consumers.  With the potential for using in conjunction with other neuromarketing  methods.

Ads Based on Mood and Body Language

Ads and emotion.  A popular thought in the media these days.  Technology companies are thinking about it as well:  " ... In an application filed in December 2010 but just made public last week, Microsoft sought to patent an advertising engine that gauges people's emotional states based on their search queries, emails, instant messages and use of online games, as well as facial expressions, speech patterns and body movements. The ad engine is device-agnostic; as Microsoft noted in its application, "client devices" could include personal digital assistants, smart phones, laptops, PCs and gaming devices... "  We discussed these methods with a number of large technology companies that worked with consumer data a decade plus ago.

A House that Knows Family Mood

Another example of sensing and automating common home processes such washing your hair. Or integrating sensory processes into the home itself. In the early 2000s we looked at many aspects of home automation and intelligence. It is still evolving, though slowly. Sometimes doing things simply can be better, unless the automation can be easily integrated very deeply in the very essence of the thing. Not sure if this is such an example ...

" ... Auger Loizeau, in collaboration with Reyer Zwiggelaar and Bashar Al-Rjoub, describe their smart-home project Happylife. It monitors facial expressions and movements to estimate a family's mood, displayed via four glowing orbs on the wall, one for each member:

We built a visual display linked to the thermal image camera. This employs facial recognition to differentiate between members of the family. Each member has one rotary dial and one RGB LED display effectively acting like emotional barometers. These show current state and predicted state, the predicted state being based on years of accumulated statistical data.... "