While roaming around the internet today I popped over to Free Republic to see how Perry supporters were doing and ran across an interesting thread.
Its title is Investigator: Herman Cain innocent of sexual advances
and it links to a CBS Atlanta story wherein Private Detective and media hound TJ Ward declared Mr. Cain's innocence based upon "Layered Voice Analysis".
In the article Mr. Ward states:
"If he is hiding something this thing would have spiked way down here," said Ward. "He is being truthful, totally truthful. He is a man with integrity and he talked directly about not knowing any incident he is accused of."
CBS Atlanta
The Freeper response after the Kos Cloud...
A few cynical comments and a LOT grasping at the Save...
Not so surprising at all really.
I think the Democratic Party's stock just went down.
This information needs to go beyond the pages of FR. I think it’s very significant.
Some were calling on Cain to somehow “prove” his innocence.
Well, this is the closest thing to it. Any questions, doubters?
...and my personal favorite just because it reminds me of the crazy that is Free Republic..
During the presser I noticed Cain slipped into Black vernacular by dropping a possessive after a word as in “my wife” when the context called for “my wife's.” This common feature of Black speech told me Cain was relaxed and NOT on guard because he was telling the truth.
But there's a fundamental problem with Mr. Ward's representations that caught my eye.
In that same article Mr. Ward states, regarding Ms. Bailek:
During the section of Bialek's news conference where she says, "He suddenly reached over put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reached for my genitals he also grabbed my head brought it towards his crotch."
During the analysis of that section the software said "high risk statement." Ward said that means she is not telling the truth about what happened.
"I don't think she is fabricating her meetings," said Ward. But, she is fabricating what transpired."
Wait sec, how can Cain be truthful when he denied the meeting and denied even knowing Ms. Bialek, yet Ms. Bialek can be truthful about the meeting taking place???...and what is this Layered Voice Analysis anyway.
What I found did not inspire confidence.
On Mr. Ward's corporate home page I find the following:
T.J. Ward is the only private investigator in the country licensed to use Layered Voice Analysis (LVA) 6.50. T.J. has recently entered into a business venture with Lynn Robbins, president of Voice Analysis Technologies of Madison, Wisconsin, to offer this truth verification system to law enforcement agencies, corporate security and loss prevention divisions across the country. It's currently in use by 65 law enforcement and 12 federal agencies.
Investigative Consultants International
It is interesting that Mr. Ward has entered into a business relationship with the producers of the product and has a financial interest in espousing its accuracy, and I'm not sure whether all those 65 law enforcement and 12 federal agencies are in the U.S. as I understand that they do some business overseas.
But let's take a look at Voice Analysis Technologies.
Layered Voice Analysis
Nemesysco Ltd. is the company which produces the Layered Voice Analysis 6.50 system used by Mr. Ward. It was registered in Netanya, Israel in 2000. All of their products revolve around their patented LVA "technology".
Nemesysco It seems to be registered in Madison, Wisconsin in the United States
Mr. Ward and Ms. Robbins can be found making some significant claims regarding this products capability and accuracy, unfortunately, it doesn't stand up to close examination...far from it.
The Guardian in the U.K., where the product was being used to try to identify benefit cheats ran an interesting article in 2009 which contains some damning quotes:
In the absence of such scientific investigation, the next best step is to analyse the software. In a paper titled "Charlatanry in forensic speech science: a problem to be taken seriously", published in the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, Eriksson and Lacerda analysed the code in the 2003 patent for Nemesysco's software. They say it comprises about 500 lines in Microsoft's simple Visual Basic programming language. That code carries out the signal analysis, they say, and then offers the multiple levels of "certainty" to operators trying to decide whether someone is being truthful.
Call their bluff
"At best, this thing is giving you an indication of how [voice] pitch is changing," Lacerda told the Guardian. "But there's so much contamination by other [noise] factors that it's a rather crude measure." In the paper - which has been withdrawn from the website of its publisher, Equinox Publishing, after complaints from Nemesysco's founder that it contains personal attacks - the scientists say the scientific provability of the Nemesysco code is akin to astrology. The deterrent effect "is no proof of validity, just a demonstration that it is possible to take advantage of a bluff".
and:
That chimes with one specialist, who spoke on condition of remaining anonymous. "Nobody seems to have done any sensible research into this," he says. "[The clients have] all talked to salesmen rather than scientists. Study after study shows low validity, and chance level for reliability. But people won't listen. They don't try them in controlled trials; they make a public announcement they're using it, then feel happy they've got a 30% fall in claims. It's called the 'bogus pipeline effect'. People are frightened [of the threat]."
And what is Nemesysco's defense against any real test for validity. Well, its just rather sad:
But Lior Koskas, the business development manager of DigiLog, says the VRA system cannot be separated from its user, because the system only picks up stress. He does not claim it spots "lies" on its own. "Only when the technology and an operator trained by us spots it, then can we say there's a risk someone is lying." Has there been a scientific "blind test" of the system? "No," Koskas says, "you can't say you're using something if you aren't."
He adds that the technology "hasn't been scientifically validated", but he rejects Lacerda and Eriksson's criticisms. "With any technology you will have opinions
Unfortunately for Nemesysco, who tried to suppress the Swedish study referred to in the Guardian article through threats of legal action the internet makes it hard to keep a secret.
...and there are those other pesky tests done to evaluate the LVA system. The one's done by real scientists and impartial examiners. The results aren't impressive:
Voice Stress Analysis Instrument Evaluation (365 kb PDF). Final Report, Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) Contract FA 4814-04-0011. By Harry Hollien and James D. Harnsberger. University of Florida, Gainesville. 17 March 2006. "The findings generated by this study led to the conclusion the [sic] neither the CVSA nor the LVA were sensitive to the presence of deception or stress."
Not good news for Herman Cain...and
Assessing the Validity of Voice Stress Analysis Tools in a Jail Setting (2.1 mb PDF). Research report by Kelly R. Damphousse, Laura Pointon, Deidre Upchurch, and Rebecca K. Moore. National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Document No. 219031 dated 31 March 2007. "The goal of this study was to test the validity and reliability of two popular VSA programs (LVA [Layered Voice Analysis] and CVSA [Computer Voice Stress Analyzer]) in a 'real world' setting. Questions about recent drug use were asked of a random sample of arrestees in a county jail. Their responses and the VSA output were compared to a subsequent urinalysis to determine if the VSA programs could detect deception. Both VSA programs show poor validity - neither program efficiently determined who was being deceptive about recent drug use. The programs were not able to detect deception at a rate any better than chance…."
Are you detecting a pattern yet???
Abstract:This study was designed to evaluate commonly used voice stress analyzers2014in this case the layered voice analysis (LVA) system. The research protocol involved the use of a speech database containing materials recorded while highly controlled deception and stress levels were systematically varied. Subjects were 24 each males/females (age range 18201363years) drawn from a diverse population. All held strong views about some issue; they were required to make intense contradictory statements while believing that they would be heard/seen by peers. The LVA system was then evaluated by means of a double blind study using two types of examiners: a pair of scientists trained and certified by the manufacturer in the proper use of the system and two highly experienced LVA instructors provided by this same firm. The results showed that the "true positive" (or hit) rates for all examiners averaged near chance (42201356%) for all conditions, types of materials (e.g., stress vs. unstressed, truth vs. deception), and examiners (scientists vs. manufacturers). Most importantly, the false positive rate was very high, ranging from 40% to 65%. Sensitivity statistics confirmed that the LVA system operated at about chance levels in the detection of truth, deception, and the presence of high and low vocal stress states.
Mendeley
So, what we really have is a "science" that's as accurate as a ouija board, as specific as rolling the dice...and Cain is still telling lies.
*and for the Dkos member who asked me for the Nancy Grace foolishness. Here's the link. You will have dig through a lot of drivel to get to the drivel that is Lynn Robbin's "analysis".
Lynn Robbins contributes nothing
A fun little article regarding the creator of this scam. Amir Liberman