Affective Media, a Scottish company, has developed an “emotion sensor” which monitors the driver’s speech for signs of certain types of behaviour and takes appropriate action.
If it detects drowsiness, through signs such as a flat speech, it can trigger an alarm or bring up another suitable prompt to rouse the driver. If the voice shows signs of stress, it can try to calm the driver down, by over-riding the car’s air-conditioning or playing soothing music.
The technology would be added to a car which already has voice-activated controls, such as a navigation system or CD player.
Affective Media chief executive Christian Jones says that: “Our technology will work with any voice recognition software. In the future, more cars will have voice-activated controls. This technology will sample the voice to tell if a person is angry or frustrated and will then act accordingly.”
Related: the sensory car.