COMPUTERIZED QUALITATIVE DATA COLLECTION DEVICE

PSYCHSOFT, INC., CREATED AND OWNS THE COPYRIGHT ON AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM CALLED SIGMUND, A UNIQUE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM THAT MIMICS THE STRUCTURED INTERVIEW DATA COLLECTION METHODOLOGY USED BY SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCHERS FOR QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS. IT TAKES ADVANTAGE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE OF INTERACTION PATTERNS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO CONDUCT STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS WITH SUBJECTS. STUDIES THAT USE QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES ARE TYPICALLY DONE WITH VERY SMALL SAMPLE SETS, NORMALLY 10 TO 15 SUBJECTS. SIGMUND MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS TO BE CONDUCTED BY THE COMPUTER PROGRAM INSTEAD OF ONE OR MORE HUMANS. THIS METHOD ALLOWS FOR A LARGER AMOUNT OF DATA TO BE COLLECTED THAN IS NORMAL IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH STUDIES,APPROACHING THE NUMBER OF SUBJECTS STUDIED IN QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH. THE PURPOSES OF THIS PROJECT ARE TWOFOLD: FIRST, TO SEE HOW SIGMUND CAN BE MADE GENERAL ENOUGH TO BE USEFUL IN BROAD-BASED SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH, WHICH WILL ALLOW QUALITATIVE RESEARCHERS THE USE OF A SIGNIFICANT TECHNOLOGICAL TOOL FOR DATA COLLECTION FOR THE FIRST TIME; AND SECOND, TO MAKE SIGMUND INTO A VIABLE COMMERCIAL PACKAGE. THE LATTER PURPOSE WILL BE ACHIEVED BY PROGRAMMINGVISUAL ENHANCEMENTS AND BY AUTOMATING THE ANALYSIS TOOLS AVAILABLE TO THE RESEARCHER.