GENERATION OF PERSONALITY PROFILES

Abstract

The disclosure relates to a method for providing a personality profile. The method comprises obtaining an identification of one or more media items; obtaining a set of media content descriptors for each of the identified one or more media items, the set of media content descriptors comprising features including semantic descriptors for the respective media item, the semantic descriptors comprising at least one emotional descriptor for the respective media item; determining a set of aggregated media content descriptors for the entirety of the identified one or more media items based on the respective media content descriptors of the individual media items; mapping the set of aggregated media content descriptors to the personality profile, wherein the personality profile comprises a plurality of personality scores for elements of the profile, the personality scores calculated from aggregated features of the set of aggregated media content descriptors; and providing the personality profile corresponding to the one or more media items.

Claims

1. Method for providing a personality profile, comprising: obtaining an identification of one or more media items; obtaining a set of media content descriptors for each of the identified one or more media items, the set of media content descriptors comprising features including semantic descriptors for the respective media item, the semantic descriptors comprising at least one emotional descriptor for the respective media item; determining a set of aggregated media content descriptors for the entirety of the identified one or more media items based on the respective media content descriptors of the individual media items; mapping the set of aggregated media content descriptors to the personality profile, wherein the personality profile comprises a plurality of personality scores for elements of the profile, the personality scores calculated from aggregated features of the set of aggregated media content descriptors; and providing the personality profile corresponding to the one or more media items.

2. Method of claim 1, wherein the media items comprise musical portions and preferably are pieces of music.

3. Method of claim 1, wherein the identification of one or more media items comprises a playlist of a user or user group.

4. Method of claim 1, wherein the identification of one or more media items comprises a short-term media consumption history of a user and the personality profile characterizes a current mood of the user.

5. Method of claim 1, wherein the one or more identified media items correspond to an album or an artist wherein the set of media content descriptors for a media item comprises one or more acoustic descriptors of the media item that are determined based on an acoustic analysis of the media item.

6. (canceled)

7. Method of claim 1, wherein the set of media content descriptors for a media item is determined based on an artificial intelligence model that determines one or more semantic descriptor and/or emotional descriptors for the media item wherein the one or more semantic descriptors comprise at least one of genres, voice presence, voice gender, vocal pitch, musical moods, and rhythmic moods.

8. (canceled)

9. Method of claim 1, wherein segments of a media item are analyzed and the set of media content descriptors for the media item is determined based on the results of the analysis for the segments; wherein the step of obtaining a set of media content descriptors for each of the identified one or more media items comprises retrieving the set of media content descriptors for a media item from a database; wherein the step of determining a set of aggregated media content descriptors comprises calculating aggregated numerical features from respective numerical features of the identified media items; wherein the personality profile is based on a personality scheme that defines a number of personality scores for profile elements that represent personality traits.

10-12. (canceled)

13. Method of claim 1, wherein a personality score of the personality profile is determined based on a mapping rule that defines how the personality score is computed from the set of aggregated media content descriptors; wherein the mapping rule is learned by a machine learning technique.

14. (canceled)

15. Method of claim 1, wherein a personality score of the personality profile is determined based on weighted aggregated numerical features of the identified media items.

16. Method of claim 1, wherein a personality score of the personality profile is determined based on presence or absence of an aggregated feature of the identified media items.

17. Method of claim 1, wherein providing the personality profile comprises displaying a graphical representation of the personality profile or transmitting the personality profile to a database server; wherein the personality profile is classified in one of a plurality of personality types.

18. (canceled)

19. Method of claim 1, wherein a personality profile of a user is determined from a playlist that identifies a long-term media item usage history of the user and a mood profile of the user is determined from a short-term media consumption history of the user, the method further comprising computing a difference between the personality profile and the mood profile of the user.

20. Method of claim 1, wherein a separate personality profile is provided for each of a plurality of media items, the method further comprising: comparing the personality profiles of the media items with a target personality profile and determining at least one media item having a best matching personality profile.

21. Method of claim 20, wherein the comparing of profiles is based on matching profile elements and selecting personality profiles of media items having same or similar elements as the target personality profile.

22. Method of claim 20, wherein the comparing of profiles is based on a similarity search where corresponding scores of profiles are compared and matching scores indicating the similarity of respective pairs of profiles are computed; ranking the personality profiles of the media items according to their matching scores.

23. (canceled)

24. Method of any of claim 20, wherein the target personality profile corresponds to a group of users or an individual user.

25. (canceled)

26. (canceled)

27. Method of claim 20, wherein at least one of the determined media items is selected for playback or recommendation to the user.

28. Method of claim 20, wherein information associated with at least one of the determined media items is provided to the user or to a user device associated with the user.

29. Method of claim 20, wherein the comparing the personality profiles of the media items with a target personality profile and determining at least one media item having the best matching personality profile is performed repeatedly; wherein the personality profiles are generated on a server platform, the method further comprising: transmitting the identification of one or more preferred media items for the user from a user device associated with the user to the server platform; and receiving a representation of at least one determined media item at the user device; wherein the identification of one or more preferred media items for the user is stored on a server platform and the personality profiles are generated on the server platform, the method further comprising: transmitting a representation of at least one determined media item to a user device associated with the user.

30. (canceled)

31. (canceled)

32. Computing device comprising a memory and a processor, configured to perform the method of claim 1.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES

[0033] Example embodiments of the disclosure will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

[0034] FIG. 1 schematically illustrates the operation of an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0035] FIG. 2a illustrates the generations of semantic descriptors from audio files;

[0036] FIG. 2b illustrates the generation of semantic descriptors by an audio content analysis unit;

[0037] FIG. 3a illustrates the mapping of mood content descriptors to the E-I (extraversion-introversion) personality score of the MBTI personality scheme;

[0038] FIG. 3b illustrates the mapping of mood content descriptors to the openness personality score of the OCEAN personality scheme;

[0039] FIG. 4a illustrates an example for the graphical presentation of a personality profile of the MBTI personality scheme;

[0040] FIG. 4b illustrates an example for the graphical presentation of a personality profile of the OCEAN personality scheme; and

[0041] FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment for a method to select the best music for a given target user group.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0042] According to a broad aspect of the present disclosure, characteristics of media items such as pieces of music are determined by a personality profiling engine for generating a personality profile or an emotional profile corresponding to the analyzed media items. This allows a variety of new applications (also called ‘use cases’ in this disclosure) to enable classification, search, recommendation and targeting of media items or media users. For example, personality profiles or emotional profiles may be employed for recommending media items the user may be interested in.

[0043] For example, if the input to the personality profiling engine is a short-term music listening history of a user, a personality profile characterizing the mood of the music listener can be determined from the recently played music of the user. If the input is a long-term music listening history, it is possible to determine the general personality profile of the music listener. One can even compute the difference between the long-term personality profile and the current mood of the user and determine if the user is in an exceptional situation.

[0044] The personality profile generated by the personality profiling engine allows to detect e.g. a music listener's emotional signature, focusing on the moods, feelings and values that define humans' multi-layered personalities. This allows addressing, e.g., the following questions: Is the listener self-aware or spiritual? Does he/she like exercising or travelling?

[0045] In an audio example, one can find similar sounding music tracks based on the emotional descriptors and/or semantic descriptors of an audio file. A media similarity engine using generated emotional profiles may leverage machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) to match and find musically and/or emotionally similar tracks. Such media similarity engine can listen to and comprehend music in a similar way people do, then searches millions of music tracks for particular acoustic or emotional patterns, matching the requirements to find the music that is needed within seconds. Based on the generated profiles, one can search e.g. for instrumental or vocal tracks only, or according to other semantic criteria, such as genres, tempo, moods, or low- vs. high-pitched voice.

[0046] The basis for the proposed technology is the personality profiling engine that performs tagging of media items with media content descriptors based on audio analysis and/or artificial intelligence, e.g. deep learning algorithms, neural networks, etc. The personality profiling engine may leverage AI to enrich metadata, tagging media tracks with weighted moods, emotions and musical attributes such as genre, key and tempo (in beats per minute—bpm). The personality profiling engine may analyze moods, genres, acoustic attributes and contextual situations in media items (e.g. a music track (song)) and obtain weighted values for different “tags” within these categories. The personality profiling engine may analyze a media catalogue and tag each media item within the catalogue with corresponding metadata. Media items may be tagged with media content descriptors e.g. regarding [0047] acoustic attributes (bpm, key, energy, . . . ); [0048] moods/rhythmic moods; [0049] genres; [0050] vocal attributes (instrumental, high-pitched voice, low-pitched voice); and [0051] contextual situation.

[0052] Within the moods category for tagging music from an “emotional” perspective, the personality profiling engine may output, for example, values for up to 35 “complex moods” which may be classified taxonomy-wise within 18 sub-families of moods that are structured into 6 main families. The 6 main families and 18 sub-families comprise all human emotions. The applied level of detail in the taxonomy of moods can be refined arbitrarily, i.e. the 35 “complex moods” can be further sub-divided if needed or further “complex moods” added.

[0053] FIG. 1 schematically illustrates the operation of an embodiment of the present disclosure, for generating personality profiles and determining similarities in profiles to make various recommendations such as for similar media items or matching users or user groups. A personality profiling engine 10 receives one or more media files 21 from a media database 20. For retrieving the media items from the database 20, the media files are identified in a media list 30 provided to the personality profiling engine 10. The media list 30 may be a playlist of a user retrieved from a playlist database that stores the most recent media items that a user has played and user-defined playlists that represent the user's media preferences.

[0054] The media files 21 are analyzed to determine media content descriptors 43 comprising acoustic descriptors, semantic descriptors and/or emotional descriptors for the audio content. Some media content descriptors 43 are determined by an audio content analysis unit 40 comprising an acoustic analysis unit 41 that analyses the acoustic characteristics of the audio content, e.g. by producing a frequency-domain representation such as a spectrogram of the audio content, and analyzing the time-frequency plane with methods to compute acoustic characteristics such as the tempo (bpm) or key. The spectrogram may be transformed according to a perspective and/or logarithmic scale, e.g. in the form of a Log-Mel-Spectrogram. Media content descriptors may be stored in a media content descriptor database 44.

[0055] The audio content analysis unit 40 of the personality profiling engine 10 further comprises an artificial intelligence unit 42 that uses an artificial intelligence model to determine media content descriptors 43 such as emotional descriptors and/or semantic descriptors for the audio content. The artificial intelligence unit 42 may operate on any appropriate representation of the audio content such as the time-domain representation, the frequency-domain representation of the audio content (e.g. a Log-Mel-Spectrogram as mentioned above) or intermediate features derived from the audio waveform and/or the frequency-domain representation as generated by the acoustic analysis unit 41. The artificial intelligence unit 42 may generate, e.g., mood descriptors for the audio content that characterize the musical and/or rhythmical moods of the audio content. These AI models may be trained on proprietary large-scale expert data.

[0056] FIG. 2a illustrates an example for the generation of semantic descriptors from audio files by an audio content analysis unit. In embodiments, the audio file samples are optionally segmented into chunks of audio and converted in to a frequency representation such as a Log-Mel-Spectrogram. The audio content analysis unit 40 then applies various audio analysis techniques to extract low and/or mid and/or high-level semantic descriptors from the spectrogram.

[0057] FIG. 2b further illustrates an example for the generation of semantic descriptors by the audio content analysis unit 40. While FIG. 2a illustrates a direct audio content analysis by traditional signal processing methods, FIG. 2b shows a neural-network powered audio content analysis, which has to learn from “groundtruth” data (“prior knowledge”) first. Audio files are converted to a spectrogram and one or more neural networks are applied to generate media content descriptors 43 such as moods, genres and situations for the audio file. The neural networks are trained for this task based on large-scale expert data (large and detailed “groundtruth” media annotations for supervised neural network training). In an example for the generation of semantic descriptors by the artificial intelligence unit 42, spectrogram data for audio files are fed as input to neural networks that generate, as output, semantic descriptors. In embodiments, one or more convolutional neural networks are used to generate e.g. descriptors for genres, rhythmic moods, voice family. Other network configurations and combinations of networks can be used as well.

[0058] A mapping unit 50 maps the media content descriptors 43 for the audio file to a media personality profile 61, by applying mapping rules 51 received from a mapping rule database 52. The mapping rules 51 may define which media content descriptor(s) is/are used for computing a profile score (i.e. the value for a profile attribute), and which weight to be applied to a media content descriptor. The mapping rules 51 may be represented as a matrix that link media content descriptors and profile attributes, and providing the media content descriptor weights. The generated personality profile 61 may be provided to the media similarity engine 70 for determining similar profiles, or stored in a profile database 60 for later usage.

[0059] In case a personality profile for a group of media items is generated, the media content descriptors 43 for the individual media items in the group are generated (or retrieved from the media content descriptor database 44) and aggregated media content descriptors are generated for the entire group of media items. Aggregation of numerical media content descriptors may be implemented by calculating the average value of the respective media content descriptor for the group of media items. Other aggregation algorithms such as Root-Mean-Square (RMS) may be used as well. The mapping unit 50 then operates on the aggregated media content descriptors (e.g. an emotional profile) and generates a personality profile for the entire group of media items.

[0060] The media similarity engine 70 can receive profiles directly from the personality profiling engine 10 or from the profile database 60, as shown in FIG. 1. The media similarity engine 70 compares profiles to determine similarities in profiles by matching profile elements or based on a similarity search as disclosed below. Once similar profiles 71 to a target profile are determined, corresponding media items or users may be determined and respective recommendations made. For example, one or more media items matching a playlist of a user may be determined and automatically played on the user's terminal device. Other use cases are set out in this disclosure.

[0061] As mentioned before, the personality profiling engine can use machine learning or deep learning techniques for determining emotional descriptors and semantic descriptors of media items. The training may be based on a database composed of a large number of data points in order to learn relations to analyze a person's music tastes and listening habits. The algorithm can retrieve the psych-emotional portrait of a user and complement existing demographic and behavioral statistics to create a complete and evolutive user profile. The output of the personality profiling engine is psychologically-motivated user profiles (“personality profiles”) for users from analyzing their music (playlists or listening history).

[0062] The personality profiling engine can derive the personality profile of a user from a smaller or larger number of media items. If based e.g. on the last 10 or more music items played by the user on a streaming service, the engine can compute a short term (“instant”) profile of the user (reflecting the “current mood of a music listener”). If (a larger number of) music items represent the longer-term listening history or favorite playlists of the user, the engine can compute the inherent personality profile of the user.

[0063] The personality profiling engine may use advanced machine learning and deep learning technologies to understand the meaningful content of music from the audio signal, looking beyond simple textual language and labels to achieve a human-like level of comparison. By capturing the musically essential information from the audio signal, algorithms can learn to understand rhythm, beats, styles, genres and moods in music. The generated profiles may be applied for music or video streaming service, digital or linear radio, advertising, product targeting, computer gaming, label, library, publisher, in-store music provider or sync agency, voice assistants/smart assistants, smart homes, etc.

[0064] The personality profiling engine may apply advanced deep learning technologies to understand the meaningful content of music from audio to achieve a human-like level of comparison. The algorithm can analyze and predict relevant moods, genres, contextual situations and other key attributes, and assign weighted relevancy scores (%).

[0065] The media similarity engine can be applied for recommendation, music targeting and audio-branding tasks. It can be used for music or video streaming service, digital or linear radio, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), also known as consumer-packaged goods (CPG), advertiser, creative agency, dating company, in-store music provider or in e-commerce.

[0066] Personality Profiling Engine

[0067] The personality engine may be configured to generate a personality profile based on a group of media items by performing the following method. In a first step, a group listing comprising an identification of one or more media items is obtained, e.g. in form of a playlist defined by a user. Next, a set of media content descriptors for each of the identified one or more media items of the group is generated or retrieved from a database of previously analyzed media items. The set of media content descriptors comprises at least one of: acoustic descriptors, semantic descriptors and emotional descriptors of the respective media item. The method then comprises determining a set of aggregated media content descriptors for the entire group of the identified one or more media items (i.e. the user's emotional profile) based on the respective media content descriptors of the individual media items. Finally, the set of aggregated media content descriptors is mapped to the personality profile for the group of media items. The scores of the profile elements are calculated from the aggregated features of the set of aggregated media content descriptors.

[0068] In example embodiments, the personality profiling engine is applied to determine the mood of a media user. For example, the mood of a music listener is determined based on the input: “short-term music listening history”; or the general personality profile of a music listener is determined from the input: long-term music listening history. In further use cases, a person's personality profile may be related to other person's personality profiles, to determine persons of similar profiles (e.g. matching people, recommending people with similar profiles products (e-commerce) or suggesting people to connect with other people (friending, dating, social networks . . . )) for that particular moment.

[0069] The personality profiling engine may further be used for adapting media items such as music (e.g. current playlist and/or suggestions or other forms of entertainment (film, . . . ) or environments such as smart home) a) to the person's current mood and/or b) with the intent to change the person's mood (intent either explicitly expressed by the person, or implicit change intent triggered by system, e.g. for product recommendation, or optimizing (increasing) a user's retention on a platform).

[0070] The personality profiling engine can be used to compute the difference between the long-term personality profile and the current (mood) profile of a user, in order to determine how different a user's current mood is from his/her general personality. This is useful, for example, for adapting a recommendation in the short-term “deviation” of the user's general personality profile into a certain musical direction (depending on a certain listening context, time of the day, user's mood etc.); and for determining the display of an advertising (ad) that would normally fit a user's personality profile but not in this moment because the current mood profile of the current listening situation deviates. In both cases the recommendation or the ad placement may adapt to the user's individual situation at the moment.

[0071] The basis for these embodiments is the personality profiling engine which analyses a group of media items identified by a provided list. For example, audio tracks in a group of music songs (from digital audio files) are analyzed. The analysis may be e.g. through the application of audio content analysis and/or machine learning (e.g. deep learning) methods. The personality profiling engine may apply: [0072] Algorithms for low-, mid- and high-level feature extraction from audio. Examples for low-level features are audio waveform/spectrogram related features (or “descriptors”), mid-level features (or “descriptors”) are “fluctuations”, “energy” etc. and high-level features are semantic descriptors and emotional descriptors like genres or moods or key). [0073] Acoustic waveform and spectrogram analysis to analyze acoustic attributes such as tempo (beats per minute), key, mode, duration, spectral energy, rhythm presence and the like. [0074] Neural Network/Deep learning based models to analyze from audio input (e.g. via log Mel-frequency spectrograms, extracted from various segments of an audio track), high-level descriptors such as genres, moods, rhythmic moods and voice presence (instrumental or vocal), and vocal attributes (e.g. low-pitched or high-pitched voice). The neural network/deep learning models may have been trained on a large-scale training dataset comprising (hundreds of) thousands of annotated examples of the aforementioned categories tagged by expert musicologists. For example, deep learning convolutional neural networks may be used but other types of neural networks (such as recurrent neural networks) or other machine learning approaches or any mix of those may be used as an alternative. In embodiments, one model is trained for each category group of moods, genres, rhythmic moods, voice presence/vocal attributes. An alternative is to train one common model altogether, or e.g. one model for moods and rhythmic moods together, or even one model per each mood or genre itself.

[0075] The audio analysis may be performed on several temporal positions of the audio file (e.g. 3 times 15 seconds for first, middle and last part of a song) or also on the full audio file.

[0076] The output may be stored on segment level or audio track (song) level (e.g. aggregated from segments). The subsequent procedures may also be applied on segment level (e.g. to get the list of moods (or mood scores) per each segment; e.g. applicable for longer audio recordings such as classical music, DJ mixes, or podcasts or in the case of audio tracks with changing genres or moods). The personality profiling engine may store all derived music content descriptors with the predicted values or % values in one or more databases for further use (see below).

[0077] The output of the audio content analysis are media (e.g. music) content descriptors (also named audio features or musical features) from the input audio such as: [0078] tempo: e.g. 135 bpm [0079] key and mode: e.g. F #minor [0080] spectral energy: e.g. 67% (100% is determined by the maximum on a catalog of tracks) [0081] rhythm presence: e.g. 55% (100% is determined by the maximum on a catalog of tracks) [0082] genres: as a list of categories (each with a % value between 0 and 100, independent of others), e.g. Pop 80%, New Wave 60%, Electro Pop 33%, Dance Pop 25% [0083] moods: as a list of moods contained in the music (each with a % value between 0 and 100, independent of others), e.g. Dreaming 70%, Cerebral 60%, Inspired 40%, Bitter 16% [0084] rhythmic moods: as a list of moods contained in the music (each with a % value between 0 and 100, independent of others), e.g. Flowing 67%, Lyrical 53% [0085] vocal attributes: either instrumental (0 or 100%), or any combination of “male” (low-pitched) and/or “female (high-pitched) voice between 50 and 100%

[0086] In an embodiment, the audio content analysis outputs: [0087] from the audio feature extraction: 14 mid- and high-level features+52 low-level (spectral) features; and [0088] from the deep learning model: 67 genres, 35 moods (+24 through aggregation to sub-families and families, see below), 5 rhythmic moods, 3 vocal attributes.

[0089] Optionally, a subsequent post-processing on the values is performed, e.g. giving some of the genre, mood or other categories a higher or lower weight, by applying so-called adjustment factors. Adjustment factors adapt the machine-predicted values so that they become closer to human perception. The adjustment factors may be determined by experts (e.g. musicologists) or learned by machine learning; they may be defined by one factor per each semantic descriptor or emotional descriptors, or by a non-linear mapping from different machine-predicted values to adjusted output values.

[0090] Furthermore, optionally an aggregation may be performed of music content descriptors to create values for a group or “family” of music content descriptors, usually along a taxonomy: In an example, 35 moods predicted by the deep learning model are aggregated to their 18 parent “sub-families” of moods and 6 “main families”, forming 59 moods in total (along a taxonomy of moods).

[0091] The analysis may be performed on song-level for a set of music songs, delivered in the form of audio (compressed or uncompressed, in various digital formats). For the generation of personality profiles, music content descriptors of multiple songs and their values may be aggregated for a group of multiple songs (usually referred to as “playlist”).

[0092] In some embodiments (use cases), the current mood of a listener is determined. In other use cases, the long-term personality profile of the listener is determined by the personality profiling engine. In both cases, the input is a list of music songs and the output is a user's personality profile (along one or more personality profile schemes). In order to determine the mood of a music listener, the input is the last few recently listened songs. These songs allow to get an idea of the current mood profile of the user. For determining the general (long-term) personality profile of a music listener, the input is (usually a larger set of) songs that represent the (longer-term) history of the user.

[0093] The generation of personality profiles may be based on characteristics of the music a user listens to, comprising for example (but not limited to): moods, genres, voice presence, vocal attributes, key, bpm, energy and other acoustic attributes (=“musical content descriptors”, “audio features” or “music features”). This may be determined per each song's music content characteristics.

[0094] In embodiments, an aggregation is done from n songs' music content descriptors to aggregated content descriptors i.e. an emotional profile of a user e.g. as an average of the numeric (%) values of each of the songs in the set (playlist), or applying more complex aggregation procedures, such as median, geometric mean, RMS (root mean square) or various forms of weighted means.

[0095] In embodiments, songs in a user's playlist or a user's listening history may have been pre-analyzed to extract the music content descriptors, which may contain numeric values (e.g. in the range of 0-100% for each value). For each content descriptor (e.g. mood “sensibility”), the root mean squared (RMS) of all the individual songs' “sensibility” values may be computed and stored. The output of this aggregation will be a set of music content descriptors having the same number of descriptors (attributes) as each song has. This aggregated music content descriptor (emotional profile) will be used in the second stage of the personality profile engine to determine the user's personality profile.

[0096] In some embodiments, instead of a user's playlist, also an album or an artist's discography (all tracks of an artist) can be used as the input for aggregation. Similarly, an aggregation of said music content descriptors (using different methods as disclosed) for a number of tracks (which can represent an album or an artist or a playlist) can be performed.

[0097] Once the aggregated value for each music content descriptor has been calculated, a personality profile is generated. For example, a mapping is performed from the elements in the emotional profile (which represent music content descriptors aggregated for n songs) to one or more personality profile(s). The mapping translates moods, genres, style, etc. to psych-emotional user characteristics (personality traits). The mapping is performed from said musical content descriptors to the scores of the personality profile (including personality traits/human characteristics). Rules may be defined to map from music content descriptors and their values to one or more types of personality profiles defined by personality profile schemes.

[0098] The output of the personality profile engine is a range of numeric output parameters, called personality profile attributes and scores, describing the personality profile of a user.

[0099] A personality profile may be defined according to various personality profile schemes such as: [0100] MBTI (Myers-Briggs type indicator) [0101] Ego Equilibrium [0102] OCEAN (also known as Big Five personality traits) [0103] Enneagram

[0104] Each of these personality profile schemes is composed by personality attributes, for instance “extraversion” or “openness” and assigned scores (values) such as 51% or 88% (concrete examples are given below).

[0105] For all of these schemes, a mapping from music content descriptors to profile scores and vice versa may be used. FIG. 3a illustrates the mapping of mood content descriptors to the EI personality score of the MBTI personality scheme. The mapping may apply a matrix like in the example shown in FIG. 3a. Either the presence (% of a mood or other music content descriptor) or the absence (100-% of the mood or other music content descriptor) may be relevant to compute a score (value) within a personality profile scheme.

[0106] Each scheme can have a number of “scores” that it computes, e.g. MBTI scheme computes 4 scores: EI, SN, TF, JP. For each score, one or more mapping rules may be defined, which affect how the score will be computed from the aggregated music content descriptors. For example, the score is equal to the sum of the values computed by the matrix divided by the number of values taken into account (i.e. a regular averaging mechanism).

[0107] For instance, the mood (comprised in the music content descriptors) “Withdrawal” is used in the EI calculation as part of the MBTI scheme. FIG. 3a illustrates an example for a rule matrix applied for the EI calculation from the moods section of the music content descriptors. The rule matrix shows how the presence of a mood or its absence can be used for calculating the EI score. Other music content descriptors may be included in the calculation in a similar manner.

[0108] In embodiments, the EI calculation comprises 17 rules incorporating 17 values from the music content descriptors. These rules follow psychological recipes, e.g. the rules within the group of “metal” define psychologically “closed shoulders”, while the rules within the group “wood” define “open shoulders”.

[0109] Similar computations may be made for other profiling matrixes, like OCEAN.

[0110] As mentioned, an MBTI personality profile has the following scores: EI, TF, JP, SN. Below is an example of representation of a MBTI personality profile and its scores:

TABLE-US-00001 “mbti”:{“name”:“INTJ”,“sources”:{ “EI”: 33.66403316629877, “SN”: 42.419498057065084, “TF”: 57.82423612828757, “JP”: 61.02633025243475}}

[0111] Depending on the score value, a basic score classification may be made. The classification may be based on comparing score values with specific threshold values. For example, the EI score in the MBTI scheme represents the balance between extraversion (E) and introversion (I) of the user. EI below 50% means introversion, while EI above 50% means extraversion. Thus, if EI<50% a user may be assigned to the I (introversion) class, otherwise he is assigned to the E (extraversion) class. The other MBTI scores may be classified in a similar way.

[0112] The scores are defined as opposites on each axis, (E-I, S-N, T-F, J-P). In each pair of letters, the value determines which side of the trait the person is, decided by <50% or >50%. To deduct the letters from above example, usually for <50% the right letter of a letter pair is taken, for =>50% the left letter.

[0113] The results of scores for a generated profile may be further classified in general personality types, e.g. based on the basic classification results for the profile scores. For example, the following general personality types may be derived from the basic score classification results: [0114] ESTJ: extraversion (E), sensing (S), thinking (T), judgment (J) [0115] INFP: introversion (I), intuition (N), feeling (F), perception (P)

[0116] The profile in above example is classified as INTJ personality type. The classification of the 4-dimensional space of profile scores (EI, TF, JP, SN) into personality types allows a 2-dimensional arrangement of the personality traits in squares having a meaningful representation.

[0117] FIG. 4a shows a graphical representation of a personality profile according to the MBTI scheme where the classification result (INTJ) for a user's profile can be indicated in color. This diagram provides for an intuitive representation of the user's profile along the different psychological dimensions. A person classified as “INTJ” is interpreted as a “Mastermind, Scientist”. Additional personality traits associated with this MBTI type may be output on the user interface.

[0118] In the OCEAN personality profile scheme, the following scores for the “Big Five” mindsets are defined: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism. FIG. 3b illustrates the mapping of mood content descriptors to the openness personality score of the OCEAN personality scheme. Here is an example of a representation of an OCEAN personality profile and its scores:

TABLE-US-00002 “ocean”:{ “agreeableness”: 51.10149671582637, “conscientiousness”: 73.42223321884429, “extraversion”: 33.66403316629877, “neuroticism”: 50.21693055551433, “openness”: 39.72017677623826}

[0119] FIG. 4b shows a graphical representation of a personality profile according to the OCEAN scheme. This diagram provides for an intuitive representation of the user's profile along the different psychological dimensions.

[0120] In some embodiments, the personality profile can optionally be enriched or associated with additional person-related parameters characterizing from additional sources (e.g. age, sex and/or biological signals of the human body via body sensors (smart watch, sports tracking devices, emotion sensors, etc.)). Optionally the personality profile can also be enriched or associated with additional parameters characterizing the context and environment of the person (location, day of time, weather, other people in the vicinity).

[0121] In embodiments, the personality profiling engine is configured to determine a target group of users for specific media items such as music or video clips. The personality profiling engine may analyze one or more media items (e.g. a song or an album or the songs of an artist) for its content in terms of acoustical attributes, genres, styles, moods, etc. It then generates a description of the target group (in the form of a personality profile) for the media item(s) such as a newly released song, album or artist, and provides the description to e.g. music labels, artists, music marketing or sound branding agencies.

[0122] The personality profiling engine may not only find the target group's profile for one or more songs, it may also operate in “reverse mode” and find matching music for a target group of people. While typically at least 10 tracks are needed to compute a profile, only a single track is needed to recommend the profile of the people who will be the most receptive (emotionally-speaking) to this track. When used in “reverse mode”, the personality profiling engine can recommend a list of tracks well suited for the selected profile(s). This allows to create a playlist for a brand who targets this profile. Further, when used by a radio station, it is possible to compute the emotional “moment” of the radio program just before an advertising break and align this moment with brands and what a brand wants to address/generate as emotions.

[0123] In embodiments, the input to the personality profiling engine is one song (alternatively a set of songs, e.g. belonging to an album or artist) and the output is a description of the target group for the song (e.g. a newly released song, album or artist). The target group is specified by one or more personality profile(s) following one or more personality profile schemes such as MBTI, OCEAN, Enneagram, Ego-Equilibrium, or others. The profile may optionally be enriched by person-related parameters (such as age, sex, etc.).

[0124] In more detail, the audio in a set of music songs is analyzed to derive its music content descriptors including semantic descriptors and/or emotional descriptors. Optionally, aggregation of said descriptors (using different methods) for a number of tracks (which can represent an album or an artist) is performed and the user's emotional profile is determined, e.g. by computing the average of the moods and/or other descriptors of multiple songs (possibilities: mean, RMS or weighted average, etc.). Then a mapping is performed from musical content descriptors to a personality profile as described above. The system then outputs and profiles for one or more relevant target groups of people, defined by one of the different personality profile schemes. The profile of a target group may be provided in numeric form, e.g. floating-point numbers for different profile scores within the mentioned schemes.

[0125] Media Similarity Engine

[0126] In embodiments, the media similarity engine is configured to select the best music for a given target user group. In this embodiment, a target group is defined and the media similarity engine selects matching music, e.g., for broadcast. This allows e.g. to propose music for an advertising campaign of a brand defined by its target consumer group. Further possible use cases are in-store music, advertising, etc.

[0127] For these embodiments, a target group of people (with the intention to find appropriate music for that target group; for music consumption, in-store music, advertising campaigns, and other use cases) is specified by one or more personality profiles following schemes such as MBTI, OCEAN, Enneagram, Ego-Equilibrium, or others, as described above. In addition. demographic parameters for the target group may be added.

[0128] A search (e.g. similarity search, or exact score matching) can be performed in the personality profiles space between the target group profile and “music personality profiles” for each individual song (i.e. the content descriptor set for the song mapped to a personality profile according to a personality scheme). Then, the “music personality profiles” from the songs that best match the target group personality profile are identified. In that respect, the personality profile scores for different personality profile schemes may be pre-computed for a candidate song. The best match for a target group of people is then found by a similarity search between the defined target group's profile scores and each song's personality profile scores. Different options for the similarity search will be described next.

[0129] The term “similarity search” shall comprise a range of mechanisms for searching large spaces of objects (here profiles) based on the similarity between any pair of objects (e.g. profiles). Nearest neighbor search and range queries are examples of similarity search. The similarity search may rely upon the mathematical notion of metric space, which allows the construction of efficient index structures in order to achieve scalability in the search domain. Alternatively, non-metric spaces, such as Kullback-Leibler divergence or Embeddings learned e.g. by neural networks may be used in the similarity search. Nearest neighbor search is a form of proximity search and can be expressed as an optimization problem of finding the point in a given set that is closest (or most similar) to a given point. Closeness is typically expressed in terms of a dissimilarity function: the less similar the objects, the larger the dissimilarity function values. In the present case, the (dis)similarity of profiles is the metric for the search.

[0130] The search for the best matching media item for a target group may be performed in the personality profiles space by comparing the target profile with the personality profiles of the media items, e.g. the music personality profiles for individual songs. This search may be performed by: [0131] matching of elements of the profiles (depending on which elements of a profile are present or not); [0132] matching of values of attributes (scores) of the profiles (numeric search); [0133] searching ranges of such values (e.g. score “Respect” is between 75% and 100%); [0134] vector-based matching and similarity computation: computing how “close” (similar in terms of numeric distance) values of a target profile and a personality profile are, by comparing the elements of their numeric profiles (e.g. using a distance measure, such as Euclidean distance, Manhattan distance, Cosine distance, or other methods such as Kullback-Leibler divergence, etc.); [0135] machine learning based learned similarity, where a machine or deep learning algorithm learns a similarity function based on examples provided to the algorithm; this learned similarity function can then be permanently used in an embodiment.

[0136] Alternatively, the media similarity engine may use a mapping of personality profile schemes to musical content descriptors to find music relevant to the target group of people. Thus, a mapping may be performed from the target group personality profile to musical content descriptors (“reverse mapping”) and, in the music content descriptor space, a search for songs matching the target profile may be performed. In this case, the reverse mapping from the target group personality profile to the music content descriptors is performed first, and then songs best matching those content descriptors are chosen.

[0137] In both cases, the output is a list of media items (e.g. music tracks) matching to the defined target group.

[0138] In embodiments, the media similarity engine may use one or more of a user's personality profile, the user's current situation or context and the current mood of the user for [0139] recommending music “in real time” on an online streaming platform; [0140] suggesting music on a mobile device application; and/or [0141] automatically playing music according to one's profile (lean-back radio).

[0142] For example, a user's listening history is analyzed by the personality profiling engine, as described above. In this way, the user's personality profile and/or the emotional profile of a music listener (including his/her mood) is determined. Next, similar to determining the target group for specific music, the media similarity engine may be configured to determine and find music best fitting an individual person (user), based on the person's (long-term) personal music listening history and/or personality profile and/or (short-term) mood profile and/or personality profile, a weighted mix between short-term and long-term personality profile, and optionally user context and environment information. The context and environment of the person can be determined by other numeric factors, e.g. measured from a mobile or other personal user device where location data, weather data, movement data, body signal data etc. can be derived. This may be performed instantly, during a user is listening in a listening session. For example, based on the songs he or she listened to before, and a pre-analysis of the songs according to music content descriptors and their mapping to one or more personality profiles, songs are chosen that best match the user's personality profile. For this, the user's personality profile is compared with personality profiles generated via mapping from media content descriptor sets as explained above. For example, a similarity search is performed between the user's target profile and personality profiles for music and the best matching profiles (and corresponding music items) determined (and possibly ranked according to their matching score). The output is a list of songs proposed for listening, and can be updated in real-time, based on new input, such as an updated listening history.

[0143] Optionally, in a similar way, from a set of songs (e.g. an album, a playlist or a set of songs of the same artist) music content descriptors are aggregated (as described above) before mapping to personality profiles, in order to recommend artists, albums or playlists instead of individual songs to the listener.

[0144] An embodiment of a method 100 to select the best music for a given target user group is shown in FIG. 5. The method starts in step 110 with obtaining an identification of a group of media items comprising one or more media items. A set of media content descriptors for each of the identified one or more media items in the group is obtained in step 120. The media content descriptors comprise features characterizing acoustic descriptors, semantic descriptors and/or emotional descriptors of the respective media item and may be calculated directly from the media item or retrieved from a database. Details on the generation of media content descriptors are provided above.

[0145] A set of aggregated media content descriptors for the entire group of the identified one or more media items is determined in step 130 based on the respective media content descriptors of the individual media items. For example, if the one or more identified media items correspond to an album or an artist, a set of aggregated media content descriptors is determined for the album or artist. If only one media item is identified, the set of aggregated media content descriptors may be determined from segments of the media item. In step 140 the set of aggregated media content descriptors (e.g. a user's emotional profile) is then mapped to a personality profile that is defined according to a personality scheme as explained above. The mapping may be based on mapping rules. The generated personality profile of the group of media items is provided to the media similarity engine in step 150. The above process is repeated for another group of media items and another personality profile is generated for the another group of media items. This way a plurality of personality profiles is generated, each associated with its corresponding group of media items and characterizing the respective media item in terms of the applied personality scheme.

[0146] In step 160 the personality profiles of the media item groups are compared with a target personality profile and at least one media item having the best matching personality profile is determined. The target personality profile corresponds to the target group of users comprising one or more users and can be determined from the users' media consumption history as explained above. The at least one media item group having the best matching personality profile is/are selected in step 170 for playback or recommendation to the user or group of users. Finally, the system outputs in step 180 a list of tracks, artists, or albums aligned with the personality profile of the target user group, together with a matching score: a value that indicates of how well each output item matches. The computation of the matching score may be performed by the similarity search as set out above.

[0147] It should be noted that the apparatus (device, system) features described above correspond to respective method features that may however not be explicitly described, for reasons of conciseness. The disclosure of the present document is considered to extend also to such method features. In particular, the present disclosure is understood to relate to methods of operating the devices described above, and/or to providing and/or arranging respective elements of these devices.

[0148] It should also to be noted that the disclosed example embodiments can be implemented in many ways using hardware and/or software configurations. For example, the disclosed embodiments may be implemented using dedicated hardware and/or hardware in association with software executable thereon. The components and/or elements in the figures are examples only and do not limit the scope of use or functionality of any hardware, software in combination with hardware, firmware, embedded logic component, or a combination of two or more such components implementing particular embodiments of this disclosure.

[0149] It should further be noted that the description and drawings merely illustrate the principles of the present disclosure. Those skilled in the art will be able to implement various arrangements that, although not explicitly described or shown herein, embody the principles of the present disclosure and are included within its spirit and scope. Furthermore, all examples and embodiment outlined in the present disclosure are principally intended expressly to be only for explanatory purposes to help the reader in understanding the principles of the proposed method. Furthermore, all statements herein providing principles, aspects, and embodiments of the present disclosure, as well as specific examples thereof, are intended to encompass equivalents thereof.

Glossary

[0150] The following terminology is used throughout the present document.

[0151] Media

[0152] Media comprises all types of media items that can be presented to a user such as audio (in particular music) and video (including an incorporated audio track). Further, pictures, series of pictures, slides and graphical representations are examples of media items.

[0153] Media Content Descriptors

[0154] Media content descriptors (a.k.a. “features”) are computed by analyzing the content of media items. Music content descriptors (a.k.a. “music features”) are computed by analyzing digital audio—either segments (excerpts) of a song or the entirety of a song. They are organized into music content descriptor sets, which comprise moods, genres, situations, acoustic attributes (key, tempo, energy, etc.), voice attributes (voice presence, voice family, voice gender (low- or high-pitched voice)), etc. Each of them comprises a range of descriptors or features. A feature is defined by a name and either a floating point or % value (e.g. bpm: 128.0, energy: 100%).

[0155] Music

[0156] Music is one example for a media item and refers to audio data comprising tones or sounds, occurring in single line (melody) or multiple lines (harmony), and sounded by one or more voices or instruments, or both. A media content descriptor for a music item is also called a music content descriptor or musical profile.

[0157] Emotional Profile

[0158] An emotional profile comprises one or more sets of media or music content descriptors related to moods or emotions and can be determined for a number of media items, in which case they are the aggregation of the content descriptors of the individual media items. They are typically derived by aggregating media/music content descriptors from a set of media items related to (e.g. consumed by) the persons or individuals. They comprise the same elements as the media/music content descriptors with the values determined by the aggregation of individual content descriptors (depending on the aggregation method used).

[0159] Person (User, Individual): Emotional Profile and Personality Profile

[0160] A person (also called user or individual) is characterized by an emotional profile or a personality profile. An emotional profile is characterized by the elements of the media content descriptors (see above). Whereas, a personality profile comprises a number of different elements with % values: A personality profile's element is a weighted element within a personality profile scheme (defined by a name or attribute and % value, e.g. MBTI: “EI: 51%”). Personality profiles are defined by a personality profile scheme such as MBTI, OCEAN, Enneagram, etc. and may relate to: [0161] a user's mood (instant, short term)—i.e. a personality profile interpreted as a short-term emotional status of the user (also called mood profile of the user); or [0162] the user's personality type (long-term)—i.e. a personality profile derived from a long-term observation of the user's media consumption behavior.

[0163] Target Group

[0164] A target group describes a group of persons. It is specified as one or a combination of “personality profile(s)”. Optionally, it may be enriched by person-related parameters (such as age, sex, etc.).

[0165] Product

[0166] A product profile comprises attributes of a product that describe it in a psychological, emotional or marketing-like way. Attributes may be associated with a % value of importance.

[0167] Brand

[0168] Product profiles may relate to brands. A brand profile comprises attributes of a brand that describe it in a psychological, emotional or marketing-like way. Attributes may be associated with a % value of importance.

[0169] Mapping

[0170] Mapping refers to a set of rules that are implemented algorithmically and transform a profile from one entity (e.g. media item, music) to another (e.g. person, product, or brand) (or vice-versa). For example, mapping is applied between a set of content descriptors (emotional profile) and a personality profile according to a personality profile scheme.

[0171] Similarity Search

[0172] A similarity search is an algorithmic procedure that computes a similarity, proximity or distance between two or more “profiles” of any kind (emotional profiles, personality profiles, product profiles etc.). The output is a ranked list of profile items having matching scores: a value that indicates of how well the profiles match.