The COVID-19 Sounds app, available as a Chrome or Firefox plugin for now, is at present building a crowdsourced data set. “The tool is basically a self-learning system that is now trying to learn signatures of a Covid infection that shows up in voice, not just in cough,” Singh said, adding that more data it is fed, the more it understands the signatures.Īt the core of the tool is a computer programme patented by Singh and used extensively in voice profiling work by law enforcement in United States, according to a homeland security research agency.Ī similar effort has been launched by researchers at the University of Cambridge. Moreover, the cough of a Covid patient is also distinct from a healthy person’s,” she added. “Any condition affecting the lungs or the respiratory system – as has been established in the cases of Covid-19 infections - has a palpable effect on voice. The changes, added Singh in a video-call, carry “a surprising amount of information that can be linked to physiological factors”. The changes can be in fractions of seconds - what we call “micro” signatures, that are not audible to the untrained listener, but nevertheless present,” said Rita Singh, a computer sciences research professor at the Carnegie Mellon University, whose team created the COVID Voice Detector. “Since the voice production mechanism is so complex and dependent on cognitive abilities, any factor that affects your body or your mind will reflect in your voice.
![when will my voice change when will my voice change](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AcbvFkzAvXA/maxresdefault.jpg)
These are then fed to AI algorithms – specifically deep learning and machine learning programmes. The rush to understand, predict and head off the Covid-19 outbreak has prompted technology researchers to deploy artificial intelligence to create tools that can determine whether people are infected by analysing the sound of their cough, the way they speak or even breathe.Ĭurrently, most of these efforts are at a stage in which the researchers are gathering data – speech and coughing recordings paired with information whether someone has an infection.