Affect Study

This is an application supporting a study conducted by UCL and SOMA Analytics. The goal is to investiagte the predictability of PANAS score from voice recordings. Therefore the participants are ask to record at several times in the course of a day a voice sample by either reading out a sentence or speaking about a topic of their choice. After the record they fill out a little questionnaire.

To register, a token is necessary which can be obtained through: http://speech.soma-analytics.com

Disclaimer
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Details of Study: You should only participate if you want to. Before you decide whether you want to take part, it is important for you to read the following information carefully and discuss it with others if you wish. Ask us if there is anything that is not clear or if you would like more information. This study is being conducted by researchers from the Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology at UCL and a London-based company called SOMA analytics.

Who are we recruiting?
We are recruiting healthy English-speaking adults, aged 18-65 with no history of mental disorder.

What will happen if you agree to take part
If you agree to participate in this study you will be asked to download a smartphone app than was developed to assess a person’s wellbeing via patterns of emotions extracted from person’s speech. Initially, we will ask you to fill out several questionnaires about you as a person (which takes a maximum of an hour but usually less). You will take part over a testing period of 14 days. Each day, at three times you will receive a reminder to check the app which will present a sentence to you that we would like you to read out aloud to the telephone. Afterwards you will be asked to complete another brief questionnaire each time – those testings will not take longer than 3 minutes each time.

What are the potential risks?
There are no major risks in participating. Some people may find some of the questions asked in the questionnaires upsetting or stress-inducing. If this was the case, we recommend to review this with your GP or to seek help (e.g. via Mind, a mental health charity, http://www.mind.org.uk).

Possible benefits
There are no direct benefits to you as the participant. However we will inform you of the overall outcome and impact of our experiment if you would like to know. 20 participants will be chosen randomly amongst all participants in a prize draw and each win £50. Moreover, your will participation will help to advance science in the field of individual differences in emotions.

Arrangements for ensuring anonymity and confidentiality
All information which is collected about you during the course of the research (including questionnaires and the transcript of your interview) will be kept strictly confidential and will be securely stored electronically, using a numbered code so that you cannot be identified. Only researchers directly involved in the study will have access to the data (including designated individuals at SOMA analytics). All data will be stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. The data will be used only for informing the research question in this study and the results of the research will be disseminated in peer-reviewed scientific journals, but you will in no way be identifiable from such publications. It is up to you to decide whether to take part or not. If you decide to take part you are still free to withdraw at any time and without giving a reason. If you decide to take part you will be asked to sign a consent form by indicating “I Agree” on the app.

Please discuss the information above with others if you wish or ask us if there is anything that is not clear or if you would like more information. It is up to you to decide whether to take part or not; choosing not to take part will not disadvantage you in any way. If you do decide to take part you are still free to withdraw at any time and without giving a reason.