Posted on 02/02/2012 4:57:52 PM PST by lbryce
The conversation earlier today between Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep and NPR's Shankar Vedantam about software that can reportedly detect when a CEO might be trying to hide something during a conference call with investment analysts sent us off on a search for more about the research that Shankar was discussing.
Layered Voice Analysis technology, according to researchers from Duke University and the University of Illinois, seems to be able to pick up on the "vocal dissonance markers" in the tone of a CEO's voice that signal he or she might be shading the truth, trying to not say something or even lying. And the technology, according to a paper the researchers have produced, seems to do a better job of that than humans the analysts taking part in such conference calls can do.
Cognitive dissonance, as researchers Jessen Hobson, William Mayhew and Mohan Venkatachalam say, "is a state of psychological arousal and discomfort occurring when an individual takes actions that contrast with a belief, such as cheating while believing oneself to be honest."
They caution that:
"LVA is an emerging technology and, as with most commercial products, its inner workings are proprietary. While our laboratory results suggest the LVA dissonance metrics capture aspects of the construct of cognitive dissonance, we are unable to document the mechanisms by which LVA is able to do so."
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Who better than your average Democrat to prove the utter "effectiveness" of this voice technology in uncovering what the subject really means, has to say? Why use a less than emphatic subject when there are so many perfect ones to prove the paraphrased adage, you can tell a dishonest Democrat by his moving lips?
Its easy to do to keep an “honesty rating” based on this for each elected official, and to provide statistical reports. Something tells me this will be banned on politicians.
But on a tangent, of course a CEO is withholding information. He/she can't tell the whole story...he can't tell what he really feels and really knows about his company.
This is about as good or bad as the venerable but much discredited polygraph. At best it could detect what people could already hear as nervousness in a voice. And it would help very little with Democrats, because they believe their lies and are seldom nervous about them.
Fatal flaw. It won't detect deception by those that are not conflicted about it.
does it work on reporters?
Your comment, and maybe PBS, assumes the CEO’s are not treasonous limo liberals like the “smart” people at PBS.
Your typical CEO is a Marxist socially because it undermines the rule of law and blurs right and wrong. Many are fascists, economically; often tapping into the US Treasury (bailouts, grants and contracts) and political influence for monopolies (favored protection and insiders who aid them above their competition, from the free market). Many are foreigners and few that are Americans have any loyality to anything you would associate with “free market.” They purchase protection from regulation and the law. They use use their money and power for the purpose of government silence and media propaganda where they can hide information from “the free market”, thereby making a fool of investors and the whole idea of capitalism in the US and world.
The “free market” is a good thing; a basic structure of constitutional freedom. Croney capitalism, which is what we have with global corporatists today, is fascist and corrupt. Investors who are not insiders, don’t have a chance because they don’t know who bought who and what and the information that is carefully hidden by government (all branches) and the media.
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