…audio comments and stories — brought back the emotions more dramatically than my photos. - (BJ Fogg, about YackPack).

Four different famous director explained why “the soundtrack” is so important in movies. Could be the same for the credibility of virtual assistants and web’s UI in general?

Some days ago, BJ Fogg posted the following article on his blog:”Audio evokes stronger emotions than photos“.

Talking about YACKPACK, BJ said:
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I’ve found that audio messages are even more powerful than photos. Not so long ago I started re-listening to some YackPack messages I’ve stored from my family. I found that their voices — their comments and stories — brought back the emotions more dramatically than my photos. Wow. This was a surprise.

I wonder if this is true for most. When it comes to capturing memories and emotions from the past, which works better: audio or images? This would make an interesting study.
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Probably this following is not exactly a “academic” point of view, but…
Alfred Hitchcock said: images tell us stories but it is the soundtrack that allows to feel emotions.

Quentin Tarantino, in a famous interview (listen here), said something similar also. (click here to buy this “interview” - included in the soundtrack anthology “Tarantino Connection“>

Tarantino was talking about how he start to think about a new movie, and the central role of audio (music or silence) in order to transmit the feeling of a great movie from the very first scenes (the role of imprinting).

But there is more…
Two extraodinary director from hollywood believe that soundtracks is the foundamental way to carry audience by the tide: George Lucas (STAR WARS + Industrial Light & Magic) said:”soundtrack is 50% of the movie show”.

Abbas Kiarostami -famous iranian director devoted to minimalism- said:”sound is more important than images! …because is the sound to gift the third dimension that images needs”.

…and all this opinions from great cineast, probably means why we have a lot of different audio-system (Dolby, THX, etc) in order to enhance the perception and experience meanwhile we are watching movies.

(about digital sound and cinemas, please read -in italian- this article).

Credibility Issues…
In these days, I’m working on virtual assistants. Our avatar are able to understand the natural language and to speech with users. They feel some basic “emotions” in the user and are able to give a emotive feedback too. Unfortunately the voice of all avatars is automatically generated by a TTS (text to speech) system and -at this time- there is no tech -on the planet- that allow to enhance a TTS with an emotional layer.

At this time, this (emotional audios) is the most relevant need that we have in build credible avatars and get the trust of users.

Now we are working with the world leader and I hope -very soon- will be possible to share our “emotional xml” with TTS also.

Because -how this fantastic video explain in a great way- using the right voice you can say everything and be credible.

…ok, also a great amplifier works!

LINKS
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few link (in italian) about BJ Fogg, YackPack and the webcredibility/captology.
- La “Captologia” spiegata da BJ Fogg (article in italian plus audio in US/ENG)
- La “durabilità” nei social-network
- YackPack! il sistema di messaggistica vocale tutto WEB ed Avatar
- Un articolo sulla captology postato dall’ottimo Nicola Mattina: qui

BJ Fogg in english…
- The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab
- BJ Fogg Biography
- Main Page over the Internet
- YACKPACK.com - NEW WEBSITE!!!