Artificial Intelligence can Identify Depression in Your Voice

By analyzing the sound of people's voices, artificial intelligence (AI) can now detect depression, finds a new study.

AI algorithms can now more precisely detect depressed mood using the sound of your voice, reports a new study. The findings of the study are presented at the Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence.//

India, the sixth most depressed country in the world, has an estimated 56 million people suffering from depression and 38 million from anxiety disorders, according to a recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

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Adolescent depression is an ailment that occurs during the teenage characterized by persistent melancholy, disappointment and loss of self-esteem.

‘New machine learning technology can identify depression through vocal cues.’
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To help identify depression early, scientists have now enhanced a technology that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to sift through the sound of your voice to gauge whether you are depressed or not.

Computing science researchers from the University of Alberta in Canada have improved technology for identifying depression through vocal cues.

The study, conducted by Mashrura Tasnim and Professor Eleni Stroulia, builds on past research that suggests that the timbre of our voice contains information about our mood.

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Clinical Depression is a serious medical condition that affects majority of people at some point in their lives. Symptoms of clinical depression include sleep disorder, loss of appetite.

Using standard benchmark data sets, Tasnim and Stroulia developed a methodology that combines several Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to recognize depression more accurately using acoustic cues.

A realistic scenario is to have people use an app that will collect voice samples as they speak naturally.

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Depression occurs due to alterations in the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain.

"The app, running on the user's phone, will recognize and track indicators of mood, such as depression, over time. Much like you have a step counter on your phone, you could have a depression indicator based on your voice as you use the phone," said Stroulia.

The WHO ranks depression as the single largest contributor to global disability. It is also the major contributor to suicide deaths.

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Brain stimulation can significantly reduce the symptoms of moderate to severe depression. Stimulation of an area called the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) can produce the maximal reduction of the symptoms.

The ultimate goal, said researchers, is to develop meaningful applications from this technology.

Such a tool could prove useful to support work with care providers or to help individuals reflect on their own moods over time.

"This work, developing more accurate detection in standard benchmark data sets, is the first step," added Stroulia while presenting the paper at the Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence recently.

Source-IANS