Researchers Use Phones to Make You Happier

Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:30 am

Scientists have successfully tested a system that uses smartphones to make people happier.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory are using mobile devices as "sensors," can record people's daily habits to determine how happy they are.
The system, called "EmotionSense," monitors a host of data, such as GPS location, time and date and even other people nearby using Bluetooth, which can then be used to predict their emotional state based on surroundings, time of day and relationships.
At the core is an audio sample database, called the Emotional Prosody Speech and Transcripts Library, which is used to cross-reference with voice samples, which can infer from tones and inflections and map it to one of 14 categories of emotions -- such as sadness, fear, anger, neutral or happy.
After 10 days of testing, in which eight volunteers carried around modified Nokia 6210 Navigator phones, researchers found interesting correlations. EmotionSense found that, unsurprisingly, people were "happier" within residential locations, while "sad" emotions dominated the data when they were at the office.
In addition, evenings prompted more intense emotions, while subjects were less expressive in larger crowds.
"This is very significant because mobile phones are carried by people continuously and they forget who forget about being surveyed, so new psychological studies can happen over long time scales and with large samples -- something they are not yet able to do," said Cecilia Mascolo, a member of the team.
The end goal is to find out what influences people's moods, which could allow scientists to figure out a solution to make them happier.
The study is similar to a project at the London School of Economics and Political Science, called "Mappiness," where scientists are trying to understand how emotions are affected by things like pollution, noise, weather conditions and green space.
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