[Infowarrior] - Software spots the spin in political speeches

[Richard Forno]

Software spots the spin in political speeches

     * 17 September 2008
     * From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues
     * Stu Hutson

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg19926746.200-software-spots-the-spin-in-political-speeches.html

BLINK and you would have missed it. The expression of disgust on  
former US president Bill Clinton's face during his speech to the  
Democratic National Convention as he says "Obama" lasts for just a  
fraction of a second. But to Paul Ekman it was glaringly obvious.

"Given that he probably feels jilted that his wife Hillary didn't get  
the nomination, I would have to say that the entire speech was  
actually given very gracefully," says Ekman, who has studied people's  
facial expressions and how they relate to what they are thinking for  
over 40 years.

It seems that Clinton's micro-expression gave away more about his true  
feelings than he intended. Politicians do not usually give themselves  
away so tellingly, and many of us would like to know whether they mean  
what they are saying. So how are we to know when they are lying?

Technology is here to help. Software programs that analyse a person's  
speech, voice or facial expressions are building upon the work of  
researchers like Ekman to help us discover when the truth is being  
stretched, and even by how much. "The important thing to recognise is  
that politicians aren't typically good at out-and-out lies, but they  
are very adept at dancing around the truth," says David Skillicorn, a  
mathematics and computer science researcher at Queen's University in  
Kingston, Ontario, Canada. "The 2008 election has so far given us  
plenty of chances to see them in action."

Skillicorn has been watching out for verbal "spin". He has developed  
an algorithm that evaluates word usage within the text of a  
conversation or speech to determine when a person "presents themselves  
or their content in a way that does not necessarily reflect what they  
know to be true".

The algorithm counts usage of first person nouns - "I" tends to  
indicate less spin than "we", for example. It also searches out  
phrases that offer qualifications or clarifications of more general  
statements, since speeches that contain few such amendments tend to be  
high on spin. Finally, increased rates of action verbs such as "go"  
and "going", and negatively charged words, such as "hate" and "enemy",  
also indicate greater levels of spin. Skillicorn had his software  
tackle a database of 150 speeches from politicians involved in the  
2008 US election race (see diagram).

When he analysed the speeches of John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary  
Clinton, he found that even though the speeches were rehearsed,  
written by professionals and delivered by trained speakers, there were  
discernable differences between them. "It's clear that the speeches  
are still highly individualised," says Skillicorn. "This makes sense  
as the speeches have to, in some manner, reflect the speaker's own  
voice and opinions. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to deliver them  
convincingly."

Additionally, he says, little details count: pronouns such as "we" and  
"I" are often substituted subconsciously, no matter what is written in  
the script.

Each of the candidates had made speeches containing very high and very  
low levels of spin, according to Skillicorn's program, depending on  
the occasion. In general though, Obama's speeches contain considerably  
higher spin than either McCain or Clinton. For example, for their  
speeches accepting their party's nomination for president, Obama's  
speech scored a spin value of 6.7 - where 0 is the average level of  
spin within all the political speeches analysed, and positive values  
represent higher spin. In contrast, McCain's speech scored -7.58,  
while Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention  
scored 0.15. Skillicorn also found that Sarah Palin's speeches contain  
slightly more spin than average.

So the analysis appears to back up McCain's claim that he is a  
"straight talker". However, for the purposes of political speech- 
making this may not be an entirely good thing for him. "Obama uses  
spin in his speeches very well," says Skillicorn. For example, Obama's  
spin level skyrockets when facing problems in the press, such as when  
Jeremiah Wright, the reverend of his former church, made controversial  
comments to the press.

"When you see these crises come along, the spin goes up," Skillicorn  
says. "Obama is very good at using stirring rhetoric to deal with the  
issues. And it seems to work if you look at what happens in the polls  
afterwards."

McCain does not seem as adept at using spin to his advantage, and his  
"straight talk" can make his speeches fall flat from a motivational  
point of view, according to Branka Zei Pollermann, founder of the Vox  
Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, who has analysed the candidates'  
voices for communication consultants Clearwater Advisors, based in  
London.

"The voice analysis profile for McCain looks very much like someone  
who is clinically depressed," says Pollermann, a psychologist who uses  
voice analysis software in her work with patients. Previous research  
on mirror neurons has shown that listening to depressed voices can  
make others feel depressed themselves, she says.
"John McCain's voice analysis profile looks like that of someone who  
is clinically depressed"

Pollermann uses auditory analysis software to map seven parameters of  
a person's speech, including pitch modulation, volume and fluency, to  
create a voice profile. She then compares that profile with the  
speaker's facial expressions, using as a guide a set of facial  
expressions mapped out by Ekman, called the Facial Action Coding  
System, to develop an overall picture of how they express themselves.

Her analysis shows that McCain's voice changes little in pitch as he  
speaks, and so conveys very little emotion or impact. Whether he is  
addressing positive prospects or discussing sad facts, his voice  
always sounds the same.

Additionally, McCain's voice and facial movements often do not match  
up, says Pollermann, and he often smiles in a manner that commonly  
conveys sarcasm when addressing controversial statements. "That might  
lead to what I would call a lack of credibility."

People are unlikely to trust statements made in a flat tone,  
particularly when they do not match the person's facial expressions.  
According to Pollermann's analysis, it may not make any difference  
that McCain does not pepper his speeches with spin, if the way he  
talks does not strike people as believable.

Obama, by comparison, speaks with greater pitch modulation, and his  
facial expressions correlate very well with what he is saying. His one  
facial foible may be a tendency to furrow his brow, she says,  
conveying constant concern. This is similar to the UK prime minister  
Gordon Brown, whose expressions tend to be limited to sadness, anger  
and disgust, according to the Vox Institute's analysis. But Obama's  
fluency, high speech rate and good use of pitch make him a dynamic  
speaker.

So what does all of this actually say about the honesty of  
politicians? "Our society treats political candidates like used-car  
salesmen," Ekman says. "The fact is that the candidates almost  
certainly believe what they are saying, even if they are giving some  
facts a much lighter treatment than others. In that way, actually  
catching someone in a blatant lie is relatively rare."

Indeed, Bill Clinton's fleeting facial slip was the only clear example  
that Ekman could recount of a politician saying something that they  
did not mean during both the Republican and Democratic national  
conventions.

However, facial recognition technology may one day be able to pick up  
on telltale signs that humans would have trouble spotting. For  
example, Yoshimasa Ohmoto and colleagues at the University of Tokyo in  
Japan are developing a facial recognition system for robots and  
artificial intelligence agents that analyses basic eye, nose and mouth  
movements, such as a slightly averted gaze when talking to someone, to  
detect if a person is telling a lie. In trials in which people played  
the bluffing game Indian poker, the system has already proved to be as  
reliable as humans trained to detect lies (AI & Society, vol 23, p 187).

"Technology is quickly catching up with psychology," says Pawan Sinha,  
who leads a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that  
specialises in computerised facial-recognition technology. "It's not  
quite there yet, because the visualisation systems just can't work  
fast enough to replace the human eye and mind. But computer processing  
is getting faster and our recognition systems are getting better," he  
says. "Someday soon, computers may be able read us better than any  
psychologist. I imagine that will be a pretty scary day for  
politicians."


 From issue 2674 of New Scientist magazine, 17 September 2008, page  
22-23