Imagine a future where your phone can analyze your emotional state by the sound of your voice. That's not as improbable as it sounds; computers are already pretty good at discerning your feelings, and they're getting better all the time. In fact, computers that listen for the right things can identify six basic emotions correctly more than nine times out of 10, according to a new study.
Science fiction is filled with examples of computers that can conversationally hold their own with humans: Buck Rogers' Dr. Theopolis; 2001: A Space Odyssey nemesis HAL; and the holographic and chronically irritated Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf, just to name a few. In reality, computers would struggle to communicate with us in such a natural way, in part because there's a lot more to speaking than transmitting words and phrases.
[For more of this story, written by Nathan Collins, go to http://www.psmag.com/nature-an...also-my-psychiatrist]
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