Depressive Mood Assessment Method Based on Emotion Level Derived from Voice: Comparison of Voice Features of Individuals with Major Depressive Disorders and Healthy Controls.

BACKGROUND

In many developed countries, mood disorders have become problematic, and the economic loss due to treatment costs and interference with work is immeasurable. Therefore, a simple technique to determine individuals' depressive state and stress level is desired.

METHODS

We developed a method to assess specific the psychological issues of individuals with major depressive disorders using emotional components contained in their voice. We propose two indices: vitality, a short-term index, and mental activity, a long-term index capturing trends in vitality. To evaluate our method, we used the voices of healthy individuals ( = 14) and patients with major depression ( = 30). The patients were also assessed by specialists using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D).

RESULTS

A significant negative correlation existed between the vitality extracted from the voices and HAM-D scores (r = -0.33, < 0.05). Furthermore, we could discriminate the voice data of healthy individuals and patients with depression with a high accuracy using the vitality indicator ( = 0.0085, area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.76).