The way we say things, the tone and inflection used, the pacing, the way we avert our eyes, our body language, and choice of words sometimes gives a lot about ourselves away without us knowing it. To a trained professional, like a detective who is interviewing a suspect or a psychiatrist, these are signs that gives them more information about what’s really going on.
However sometimes there are things that even professionals might miss, but thanks to researchers from the universities of Southern California and Utah, they have developed a computer program that can tell if a marriage is in trouble. This is done by analyzing the speech of couples, and will then predict whether the relationship will improve, stay the same, or worsen.
The computer will be able to pick up speech nuances like loudness, jitter or “shimmer” which according to one of the researchers Brian Baucom, measures the shakiness in one’s voice. They also rated other aspects of an interaction like words and body language. That being said, just because a computer predicts something doesn’t mean that it isn’t true.
However we can only imagine that if couples knew that their marriage was headed towards disaster, they would work more actively on it to change things. Or maybe if they know that it is only getting worse, perhaps calling it quits early would save them a fair bit of heartbreak.
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