New Affectiva Metrics Measure Reactions in Online Qual

Swedish eye tracking tech firm Smart Eye has expanded its Affectiva Emotion AI technology with the launch of 'Conversational Engagement' and 'Conversational Valence' metrics, to provide insight into consumer responses to content, using facial analysis for online qual research.

Acquired by Smart Eye last year, Affectiva offers software to detect complex and nuanced human emotions and cognitive states from face and voice. The new metrics have been designed to help understand the emotional states and reactions of participants speaking in online qual research studies, such as focus groups and verbatim video feedback. According to the firm, the metrics augment the 'human touch' of study moderators, to help them gain additional insight during online studies.

Built on deep learning, the new metrics allow for the distortions in facial expression produced when people speak, with an adaptive version of the metrics which the firm says is particularly suited for focus group discussion videos with multiple participants. Using a speech detector, it applies the new conversation metrics only to those sequences and individuals who are speaking.

Rana el Kaliouby (pictured), co-founder of Affectiva, who is now Deputy CEO of Smart Eye, states: 'The addition of conversational engagement and valence to our Emotion AI provides an even more robust way to detect viewer engagement and excitement when they are discussing ideas and concepts, rather than simply viewing content.'

Web sites: www.smarteye.ai and www.affectiva.com .