Researchers in Germany have created the first library of drunk speech patterns, which could be used to predict drunkenness by listening for vocal¹ cues.

 

Called the Alcohol Language Corpus, the database was made between 2007 and 2009 by giving people too much alcohol to drink, before recording² conversations conducted in a stopped car, where the drunk person was sitting in the passenger seat.

 

There are currently conversations from 162 German men and women in the publicly-available audio database.

 

Experts at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Institute of Legal Medicine in the city collected the data, FastCompany reported.

 

From this, an algorithm that is capable of detecting whether someone is drunk by listening in on slurring⁴ speech patterns, has been created by computer scientists at Queens College and Columbia University.

 

They found that they could detect drunken speech patterns much like identifying an accent.

 

Drunken speech hall marks include stammering⁵ and stuttering. Voices also tend to rise in pitch and words begin to slur³, they said.

 

It is hoped that the software could be used alongside devices such as locks and immobilizers to make it impossible for people to drive when drunk - perhaps by asking them a few questions while analyzing⁶ the driver's voice.

 

'The cars themselves could listen to the driver, detect that the potential driver is intoxicated⁷, and prevent the car from starting,' the researchers explained.

 

However, the safety system may be a few years away, because the algorithm to detect drunkenness is typically only right around three quarters of the time.

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