Layered Voice Analysis

Layered Voice Analysis or LVA is a security level technology designed for truth verification and detection of deceit. 129 vocal parameters are utilized in order to detect and measure minute, involuntary changes in the speech waveform and create the foundation for identifying the speaker’s emotional profile. It is related to Voice Stress Analysis or VSA, which focuses on fewer parameters.

LVA claims to identify a subject’s state-of-mind, various types of stress, cognitive processes and emotional reactions by creating an emotional signature of an individual’s speech at "rest" and comparing it to later samples.

Products based on LVA are used in combat pilot debriefings to contest decisions made by the pilots during missions.

Controversy

A study from the U.S department of justice showed that LVA performed badly. In 2007 two Swedish professors of linguistics, Anders Eriksson and Francisco Lacerda published an article called "Charlatantry in forensic speech science" in an international magazine for voice experts working for the police and security services. Here they condemned the use of speech analysis for lie detection.

The company Nemesysco who developed LVA demanded that the article should be withdrawn from the online version of the magazine, and the publisher Eqinox did so, replacing it with an apology for insulting the company. Nemesysco's lawyers then sent letters to the Swedish professors where they threatened to sue them for defamation if they publish similar articles again.