PRESS RELEASE
Moodagent Proving To Be More Than Just An App
iPhone music app attracting attention of psychologists in the study of music and emotions
Macworld Conference & Expo 2010 – SAN FRANCISCO, January 10, 2010 – Syntonetic Inc., creator of Moodagent music profiling and recommendation technology, today announced that uses for its iPhone application may extend far beyond instant playlist creation. More than 1,000,000 listeners have used Moodagent technology to enjoy their favorite music, but now the Moodagent app is beginning to turn the heads of psychologists interested in the effects of music on emotions.
Moodagent creates instant playlists by allowing the listener to adjust touchscreen sliders labeled Sensual, Tender, Joy, Aggressive and Tempo. These sliders determine the characteristics of the music added to that playlist. Playlist creation aside, some psychologists are interested in the application’s ability to quantify emotion.
Typically, psychologists measure emotion via surveys, asking people to verbally indicate their mood. Emotion can also be gleaned from tone of voice and facial expression. Like a person, Moodagent can perform a complicated series of analyses to measure the emotional qualities of a song.
Dr. David Echevarria, professor of psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi, believes Moodagent may prove useful as a teaching tool to help stimulate critical thinking about the impact of music on emotions. “As a psychologist, I am fascinated that a mobile application can discern subtle and elusive emotional qualities in music,” he said. “There are some individuals with various disorders who find this an extremely challenging – if not impossible – task, and here we have a app that can do it! Moodagent is essentially a form of artificial social intelligence.”
It has long been known that music can either positively or negatively affect a person’s mood, state of happiness or stress level. Many people often turn to their favorite music to help themselves feel better, happier and more relaxed when they are feeling down or stressed, which can in turn affect mood-enhancing neurochemicals. For example, listening to music that normally makes one happy and promotes feelings of relaxation will trigger the brain to release serotonin*, a naturally occurring anti-depressant neurotransmitter that boosts feelings of happiness and stimulates the mind and body to enjoy a more relaxed state.
When it comes to music as a mood booster, sorting through thousands of tracks for the perfect music could have an adverse effect, actually raising your stress levels even more. To avoid this undesirable task, many will use a shuffle feature to create a playlist, but any veteran iPod owner knows that this often results in a muddled combination of music that does not work well together, thus promoting feelings of frustration. Listening to a song that puts you in one mood followed by something completely unexpected can elevate levels of stress, something that can happen with the shuffle feature.
Moodagent lets listeners create playlists based on their mood, or create playlists to change their mood. The Moodagent engine was carefully designed to choose music that most closely matches the settings the listener chose, and the app does it in five seconds or less. Little work is required on the part of the listener. He or she simply sets the sliders. Moodagent understands that listeners are people, not statistics, and looks at one’s music library to understand the emotional characteristics of his or her music. It chooses the best music for the listener based on emotions, instead of music popularity like some other similar playlisting solutions.
“I’m hoping to use Moodagent as a teaching tool to stimulate conversation, learning and critical thinking in the area of emotions and psychology,” said Echevarria.
“We want people to think of music and Moodagent as a fast, effortless cure when they are feeling down about dreary winter weather, the economy or even trouble in the world,” said Richard French, chief executive officer of Syntonetic. “Moodagent lets you create a playlist based on the mood you’re in right now, or the mood you want, and since it uses only music you have on your iPhone or iPod Touch there are no surprises and no redirection to iTunes to purchase new music.”
Syntonetic will exhibit the mobile application and music profiling and recommendation technology at this week’s Macworld 2010, in the Mobile Application Showcase, Booth #1366, Kiosk #57. Moodagent experts will provide live demos for event attendees.
About Syntonetic
Syntonetic delivers powerful solutions for leading mobile device manufacturers, mobile operators, online music businesses and streaming music services, and provides applications direct to consumers. The company’s intelligent applications automatically decode unique properties within songs, including moods and emotions, to create new music services that attract and retain users, and applications that change the way people listen to music. More than 1,000,000 customers from 187 different countries have synced over 1 billion songs to create instant playlists based on moods and emotions. Syntonetic offices are located in Frederiksberg, Denmark, and San Francisco, Calif., and can be found online at www.syntonetic.com.
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*Evers, S. & Suhr, B. (2000). Changes of the neurotransmitter serotonin but not of hormones during short time music perception. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, Vol 250(3), 144-147.
