What you say matters, but the way you talk to your partner would reveal quite significantly the couple’s well-being and its likely duration over time, according to the findings. from a study published in the journal Proceedings of Interspeech.
Researchers at the University of Southern California (USA) have developed an algorithm capable of predicting a couple’s chances of lasting. It would rely solely on the intonations of the voice. And the results would be safer than those revealed by a specialist.
To develop this tool, the scientists recorded the dialogues of couples during sessions with a marriage counselor for two years. The researchers then evaluated the life of these couples for 5 years.
Voice pitch, intensity, but also the chirping of the voice, the algorithm highlighted the link between the way of speaking and the duration of married life.
The predictions of this mathematical tool would be correct for more than 74% of the cases analyzed. A performance that specialists are unable to achieve.
“Psychological researchers and practitioners have long known that the way partners talk about their problems has important consequences for the health of their relationship. However, the lack of effective and reliable tools to measure the important elements of these conversations has been a major obstacle to their clinical use”, recalls Brian Baucom of the University of Utah, who commented on this study.
“What you say is not the only thing that matters, it is also very important how you say it,” concludes Shrikanth Narayanan, researcher at UCLA and co-author of the study.
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