Systems and methods for determining social regard scores

• US 8,825,584 B1
• Filed: 08/04/2011
• Issued: 09/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Smart Information Flow Technologies LLC
• Original Assignee: Smart Information Flow Technologies LLC
• Inventors: Miller, Christopher A., Rye, Jeffrey M., Funk, Harry B., Wu, Peggy
• Primary Examiner(s): Chang, Li-Wu
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kim, David H
• Application Number:
  US13/198,563
• Time in Patent Office: 1,125 Days
• Field of Search: 706/50
• US Class Current: 706/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2282 Tablespace storage structures; Management thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/23 Updating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/02 Knowledge representation; Symbolic representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

A system is disclosed for evaluating communicative acts to determine a social regard score between two communicating entities participating in the communicative act. The two communicating entities collectively define a communication pair. The system includes a patterns database and an etiquette processor. The patterns database stores behavior recognition patterns defining particular redressive behaviors that may be used in the communicative acts and a redress score associated with each one of the particular redressive behaviors. The etiquette processor is in communication with the patterns database and is configured to determine a pairwise regard score for the communicative pair based on ones of the particular redressive behaviors identified in the communicative acts between the two communicating entities of the communicative pair.

Claims

1. A system for evaluating communicative acts to determine a social regard score between two communicating entities participating in the communicative act, the two communicating entities collectively defining a communication pair, the system comprising:

a patterns database storing behavior recognition patterns defining particular redressive behaviors that may be used in the communicative acts and a redress score associated with each one of the particular redressive behaviors; and

an etiquette processor in communication with the patterns database and configured to determine a pairwise regard score for the communicative pair based on ones of the particular redressive behaviors identified in the communicative acts between the two communicating entities of the communicative pair;

wherein;

the communicative pair is one of a plurality of communicative pairs each including a different two communicating entities,

the etiquette processor is configured to determine a different pairwise regard score for each one of the plurality of communicative pairs based on ones of the particular redressive behaviors identified in the communicative acts between a corresponding one of the different two communicating entities of the communicative pair, and

the system further comprises;

a communications network aggregation processor configured to combine the pairwise regard scores for each one of the plurality of communicative pairs, received from the etiquette processor, into a social regard network representation including a plurality of entities in the social regard network and indicating a respective social regard level of each of the plurality of entities relative to other ones of the plurality of entities, the plurality of entities including the two communicating entities of each one of the plurality of communicative pairs.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a communications network extractor configured to determine a network based on non-etiquette factors of the communicative acts.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the communications network aggregation processor is configured to use the network based on non-etiquette factors from the communications network extractor to inform creation of the social regard network representation.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising one or more output writers configured to arrange one or more of the pairwise regard scores for each one of the plurality of communicative pairs and the social regard network representation into a graphical representation thereof to be viewed via one or more of a user interface and a printed document.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the etiquette processor is configured to;

determine an act regard score for each of the communicative acts based on analysis of individual elements of a respective one of the communicative acts, and

if multiple act regard scores are determined for the communicative pair, then combine the multiple act regard scores for the communicative pair to determine the pairwise regard score between the two communicating entities of the communicative pair.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein:

the etiquette processor is further configured to analyze the individual elements of each of the communicative acts to determine the redress score for each of the individual elements of each one of the communicative acts based on the particular redressive behaviors identified in each one of the communicative acts and the behavior recognition patterns stored in the database, and

the act regard score is based on a summation of the redress scores for each of the individual elements of the respective one of the communicative acts.

7. The system of claim 6, further comprising:

a culture specific value database including a plurality of cultural modules each configured to at least one of augment and alter one or more of the redress scores associated with one or more of the particular redress behaviors and the summation of the redress scores, wherein;

the etiquette processor is configured to determine the redress score for each of the individual elements of each one of the communicative acts based on the particular redressive behaviors identified in each one of the communicative acts, the behavior recognition patterns stored in the database, and a preselected one of the plurality of cultural modules from the culture specific value database.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the preselected one of the plurality of cultural modules is selected based on an expected cultural environment in which the communicative acts take place.

9. The system of claim 7, further comprising a discourse parser configured to receive the communicative acts and to dissect each of the communicative acts into the individual elements for analysis by the etiquette processor.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein each of the individual elements is a different functional element of the respective communicative act.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the etiquette processor automatically determines the pairwise regard score for each based on analysis of the communicative acts upon receipt of data representing corresponding ones of the communicative acts.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein each pairwise regard score is further based on a ranked imposition of each of the communicative acts for the communicative pair.

13. A method of determining perceived power differences between parties using politeness based scoring, the method comprising:

gathering data regarding a plurality of captured communicative acts occurring between two parties, the two parties defining a sender and receiver pair;

using a processor and predefined politeness based patterns stored in at least one database to score each of the plurality of captured communicative acts to determine a plurality of power scores for the sender and receiver pair, each one of the plurality of power scores representing a perceived power difference between the sender and receiver pair for a respective one of the plurality of captured communicative acts based at least in part on politeness used during the respective one of the plurality of captured communicative acts; and

combining the plurality of power scores for the captured communicative acts occurring between the sender and receiver pair to construct a combined power score for the sender and receiver pair indicating the perceived power difference between the sender and receiver pair based on all of the plurality of captured communicative acts between the sender and receiver pair;

wherein;

the sender and receiver pair is one of a plurality of sender and receiver pairs in a group having a previously unknown organizational structure, and the processor determines a different combined power score for each of the of plurality of sender and receiver pairs, and

the method further comprise using an aggregating hardware engine to aggregate the different combined power scores for each of the plurality of sender and receiver pairs to construct a social power hierarchy for the group, the social power hierarchy for the group indicating relative power between all individuals in the group that form part of the plurality of sender and receiver pairs.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein:

the predefined politeness based patterns stored in the at least one database include scoring values for a plurality of communication components that may be extracted from each of the plurality of captured communicative acts, and

using the processor and the predefined politeness based patterns to score each of the plurality of captured communicative acts includes;

breaking each of the plurality of captured communicative acts into identified ones of the plurality of communication components,

scoring each of the identified ones of the plurality of communication components based on the predefined politeness patterns, and

summing scores of each of the identified ones of the plurality of communication components to determine a power score for the sender and receiver pair corresponding to each of the plurality of captured communicative acts occurring between the sender and receiver pair.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein using the processor and the predefined politeness based patterns stored in the at least one database to score each of the plurality of captured communicative acts includes ranking a level of imposition included in each corresponding one of the plurality of captured communicative acts.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein a hardware engine performs the combining the power scores operation.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining a non-politeness based network based on non-politeness based characteristics of the plurality of captured communicative acts, wherein aggregating the different combined power scores for the plurality of captured communicative acts to construct the social power hierarchy for the group is determined with reference to the non-politeness based network.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein:

the predefined politeness based patterns include a general set of politeness scoring patterns and a set of predefined cultural scoring values corresponding to an identified culture of the group, and

the using the processor and predefined politeness based patterns to determine the power score is performed using the general set of politeness scoring patterns as one or more of modified and supplemented by the set of predefined cultural scoring values corresponding to the identified culture of the group.

19. A computer program product for determining social regard between members of the organization using at least one processor device, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer-readable program code portions stored therein, the computer-readable program code portions comprising:

a first executable portion for receiving a text based representation for each of a plurality of communicative acts occurring between a pair of communicative entities; and

a second executable portion for determining a pairwise regard score for the communicative pair, wherein the pairwise regard score is based on redressive strategies used during the plurality of communicative acts occurring between the pair of communicative entities;

wherein;

the pair of communicative entities are part of an organization having more than two entities,

the second executable portion determines a pairwise regard score for other entities in the organization based on communicative acts in addition to the plurality of communicative acts between the pair of communicative entities, and

the computer program product further includes a third executable portion for compiling the pairwise regard scores for the pair of communicative entities and the other entities in the organization to construct a social regard network for the organization indicating relative social regard between all entities in the organization that participated in the plurality of communicative acts and the communicative acts in addition to the plurality of communicative acts.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the second executable portion includes:

a partitioning executable portion for partitioning each of the plurality of communicative acts into a plurality of functional elements,

a scoring executable portion for scoring each of the plurality of functional elements of each of the plurality of communicative acts based on a predefined redressive score accessed from a memory and corresponding with a type of each respective one of the plurality of functional elements,

a summing executable portion for summing scores from each of the plurality of functional elements to determine an overall regard score for each of the plurality of communicative acts, and

a score aggregation executable portion for aggregating the overall regard scores for each of the plurality of communicative acts occurring between the pair of communicative entities to determine the pairwise regard score for the pair of communicative entities.

21. A system for evaluating communicative acts to determine social regard between entities performing the communicative acts, wherein each of the communicative acts occurs between two communicating entities, and each set of the two communicating entities defines a communicative pair, the system comprising:

a patterns database storing behavior recognition patterns defining particular redressive behaviors that may possibly be used in the communicative acts and a redress score associated with each one of the particular redressive behaviors;

a culture specific value database including a plurality of cultural modules each configured to at least one of augment and alter one or more of the redress score associated with one or more of the particular redress behaviors and the summation of the redress scores; and

an etiquette processor in communication with the patterns database and configured to determine a pairwise regard score for the communicative pair based on ones of the particular redressive behaviors identified in the communicative acts between the two communicating entities of the communicative pair and a preselected one of the plurality of cultural modules from the culture specific value database;

wherein;

the communicative pair is one of a plurality of communicative pairs each including a different two communicating entities,

the etiquette processor is configured to determine a different pairwise regard score for each one of the plurality of communicative pairs based on ones of the particular redressive behaviors identified in the communicative acts between a corresponding one of the different two communicating entities of the communicative pair, and

the system further comprises;

a communications network aggregation processor configured to combine the pairwise regard scores for each one of the plurality of communicative pairs, received from the etiquette processor, into a social regard network representation including a plurality of entities in the social regard network and indicating a respective social regard level of each of the plurality of entities relative to other ones of the plurality of entities, the plurality of entities including the two communicating entities of each one of the plurality of communicative pairs.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the preselected one of the plurality of cultural modules is selected based on an expected cultural environment in which the communicative acts take place.

23. A system for evaluating communicative acts, wherein each of the communicative acts occurs between two communicating entities, and each set of the two communicating entities defines a communicative pair, the system comprising:

a patterns database storing behavior recognition patterns defining particular redressive behaviors that may be used in the communicative acts and a redress score associated with each one of the particular redressive behaviors;

a culture specific value database including a plurality of cultural modules each configured to at least one of augment and alter one or more of the redress score associated with one or more of the particular redress behaviors and the summation of the redress scores;

an etiquette processor in communication with the patterns database and configured to determine a pairwise regard score for the communicative pair based on ones of the particular redressive behaviors identified in the communicative acts between the communicative pair and a preselected one of the plurality of cultural modules from the culture specific value database'"'"'

wherein;

the communicative pair is one of a plurality of communicative pairs in an group,

each of the plurality of communicative pairs is formed by two of a plurality of communicative entities in the group,

the etiquette processor is configured to determine a pairwise regard score for each one of the plurality of communicative pairs based on ones of the particular redressive behaviors identified in communicative acts between the respective plurality of communicative pairs and the preselected one of the plurality of cultural modules from the culture specific database, and

the system further comprises;

a communications network aggregation processor configured to compile the pairwise regard scores for each one of the plurality of communicative pairs, received from the etiquette processor, into a social regard network representation of the plurality of communicative entities in the group indicating a respective social regard level of each of the plurality of communicative entities relative to other ones of the plurality of communicative entities.