FURTHER INFORMATION

Below are abstracts of published research papers relevant to our products and services. Please ask if you would like a copy of the full article or download it by clicking on the link in the title.

Research publications
Mood state and gambling: Using mobile telephones to track emotions
Gee, Coventry & Birkenhead, British Psychological Society, 2005
Abstract: "Mobile telephones were used to collect data on the relationship between gambling and mood state from gamblers in the field. Seventeen gamblers called an interactive voice response system running on a computer before, during and after a gambling episode. Measures taken in this way included self-reports of anxiety/arousal, the amount of money gambled, whether the result was a win or loss, the amount won or lost, and the type of gambling engaged in. Other measures were taken during an initial briefing session using conventional questionnaires that included self-reports of anxiety/arousal taken in a non-gambling situation, dissociation during gambling, and a measure of degree of impairment of control. The results showed that subjective anxiety/arousal levels were significantly higher during and after gambling than during the urge to gamble or at baselines. Losing was associated with increased subjective anxiety/arousal after play, and winning was associated with a decrease in subjective anxiety/arousal. This suggests that gambling may be a cause of increased subjective anxiety/arousal, rather than functioning to relieve it. A cluster of variables associated with impaired control and subjective anxiety/arousal levels was also identified. The method of collecting data using mobile telephones appears to be a valuable development."

Interactive voice response: Review of studies 1989-2000
Corkrey R.; Parkinson L., Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 2002
Abstract:"A systematic review of the use of interactive voice response (IVR) was conducted. IVR is a telephone interviewing technique in which the human speaker is replaced by a high-quality recorded interactive script to which the respondent provides answers by pressing the keys of a touch telephone (touchphone). IVR has numerous advantages, including economy, autonomy, confidentiality, access to certain population groups, improved data quality, standardized interviewing, multilingual interfaces, and detailed longitudinal assessments. Despite this, there have been few applications of IVR. Previous studies have been in the areas of information services, reminder calls, monitoring, assessment, experimentation, interventions, and surveys. Areas that have received little attention have been the systematic evaluation of voice, multilingual interfaces, touchphone prevalence, survey response rates, use by the elderly, and acceptability."