You may not be aware of it (com’on dude) but we, Uptale, are consistently working on improving our platform and our features to enhance the effectiveness of learners in absorbing knowledge and interacting in a VR training. Thanks to The Little Mermaid, we understand how important and impactful a human voice is. When talking about voice analysis, we are not superficially referring to tone and pitch. But more profoundly, about rate, fluency, as well as the words selection and content delivered by your voice. These are elements we need to take into account in public speaking.
Rumi once said, “Raise your words not voice.”. We hearkened his words of wisdom and have been working on improving the effectiveness of VR training and the learning experience using AI (Artificial Intelligence) and speech analysis algorithm, so as to provide you a deeper behavior analysis, and to make soft skills VR training as efficient and interactive as hard skills immersive training.
What’s exactly in our minds?
- Analytical data that is articulated enough to make soft skills measurable thus can be taught and learned effectively
- Customized evaluation should be provided to save trainer time on providing one-on-one feedback
- Timely and immediate feedback that encourages self-reflection and enhances knowledge retention
- (Even) more interactive than our current voice recognition (Yes, a built-in Siri will be great)
Why do we think that a feature meeting the above criteria is important to you?
Speech is not only about linguistic content
We all know that a great speech is not only about linguistic content, but also the quality of your voice. For instance, the speed, volume, frequency of unnecessary filler words and so on. A comprehensive voice analysis should be able to provide these kinds of data so that the skill you would like to develop, can be trained effectively in all dimensions.
Speaking is a two-way thingy
Do you remember the joy and excitement you got the first time you talked to Siri 8 years ago? Apple was not the first that invent nor implement voice controls in a mobile device, but they made it natural and interactive. We understand that, and we would like to improve the interaction a learner obtains from a VR training, which will generate emotion during training and eventually improve knowledge retention.
Instant feedback is needed
Guess everyone has a bad habit that is hard to break? One of the reasons is because you have rehearsed and reinforced it frequent enough to integrate it in your routine, and you didn’t have a chance to be advised not to do so before you have developed it as a habit.
On-time feedback allows learners to understand and assimilate the content better. It also encourages self-reflection, deepens learners’ understanding and enhances knowledge retention, this allows learners to correct the incorrect ideas or behaviors before it has become a habit.
Save time and money (best combo right? ✌)
One of the reasons why e-learning/ VR training is so widely adopted is that it’s more time and cost-friendly to run self-starting VR training than to schedule one-on-one training for each employee. With more robust and promising analytical voice behavioral data, it can free experts from doing part of the analysis and to provide even deeper, constructive and personalized feedback. Sometimes, AI can even identify the smallest, almost unnoticeable detail that we humans may just let it pass.
We truly believe that combining Artificial Intelligence and Human Expertise is the best way to achieve synergies, and the best use of technology.
Remove subjectivity / avoid bias
Humans, admit it or not, are always subject to cognitive distortions, which affect the evaluation/assessment from time to time.
Let’s take the example of a public speaking VR training exercise. With a better and deeper voice analysis powered by AI, combining with our heatmaps feature, you can assess / evaluate a learner’s performance with no unconscious biases /subjectivity. This helps standardize how one is being evaluated.
No blind-guess, use data.
We could speak about it endlessly…
Now that you see our path of thought about why we developed this exciting voice analysis feature, and how it assists you in improving your training effectiveness. It is time to dive deeper!