Need to dial down your anger

People can avoid unnecessary conflict by controlling their emotions with the help of a mobile phone application, its Russian developer says. Graduate student Vladimir Mikhailov at the Perm State National Research University says his app analyzes the user's voice to identify aberrations from its normal state, RIA Novosti reported Friday. "If a person is angry, the device prompts him to complete a couple steps so he can calm down," he said. "For example, when the user is exasperatedly talking into the phone, the app notifies him that a conversation in that condition could be damaging, and proposes a few ways to stabilize his emotional state." Volume is not the only criterion the app used to detect anger, he said. "If you're talking loudly, it doesn't [necessarily] mean that you're angry," he said. The app uses a mathematical model of human behavior currently being developed by scientists at the university. "The app, of course, can't determine the emotional state of the user with 100 percent accuracy," Mikhailov said. "We're going to enhance the development based on data from experiments. That will begin when we complete work on the first version of the application." The program could help business executives, managers, office workers and others who often hold important business-related conversations over the phone, the researchers said.