Elaboration

The Elaboration Advantage


Real Range of Feeling

Since 2013, Elaboration has pursued emotional detection in every shade of the human experience. Our services make room for real, tangible feelings across a spectrum of emotion.

Affective Context

Other services can tell you what your audiences talk about, but they can't shed much light on why. We reach below the surface to uncover things like bias, social dynamics, influences, core causes, and affective factors for feelings and opinions.

360° Expertise

Elaboration boasts a truly multidisciplinary computational team. Our behavioral analysts and media veterans join forces with experts in machine learning, natural language processing, and data science for cutting-edge social listening that's intuitive and authentic.

Nuanced Emotional Analysis

People don't feel in 2 dimensions, so we have never been satisfied classifying feeling in a binary way, despite industry practices. We offer fine-grained, genuine emotional analysis, reaching far beyond the cursory classifications of positive-negative-neutral (PNN).

Ongoing Process Improvement

The heart of machine learning is improvement and progress based on experience. We don't believe in stopping there. We apply our own tough standards through every part of the analytical process, from custom consulting to our technology design. We constantly evaluate and improve our process with internal retrospectives after each delivery, to ensure we're leveling up ourselves.

Targeted, Values-Driven Projects

We specialize in one thing: quantifying the human experience. At heart, Elaboration only takes projects we feel fit our expertise, which further (vs. infringe upon) individual rights, expression, and civil liberties, while guarding against exploitation of vulnerable populations. We try to offer unbiased analysis that will benefit people from all walks of life and belief systems.


ABOUT ELABORATION LABS

Exploring the Future of Feeling

Who We Are

Elaboration Labs specializes in the quantification of the abstract, subjective, and emotive aspects of the human experience.


A young company forged by an experienced team, Elaboration takes a modernized approach to unearthing emotional information in data. In an industry focused on binary classification, we identify nuanced, specific sentiment.

Elaboration is the first 360° affect detection system to recognize the subtleties of human feeling without compromising accuracy, objectivity or dimension.

What We're Doing

Elaboration has one aim: dedication to creative technology that heightens and sharpens emotional awareness.



Our primary focus is fueling future technology which empowers real people to transform themselves, their relationships — and their world — for the better.

From self-awareness to global awareness, we leverage and create Artificial Intelligence that enriches genuine interaction and quality of life.

What Matters To Us

Working in the heart of the space where machines and human join each other, we believe values matter more than ever before.


We endeavor to keep the following values at the forefront of all we do, and at the center of our own consciousness in each project:

TRANSPARENCY — User data is more valuable than ever before — and data privacy has never been more important. We believe informed consent must be the backbone of every innovation.

OBJECTIVITY — We self-impose practices to reduce bias and skew in our analytical tools and methodologies, for purer, more effective data assessment. We always make room for rejected hypotheses and welcome null results.

POSSIBILITY — We haven't met a question we haven't fallen in love with fast. We approach problems with optimism, rather than retreating into industry comfort zones.

SELECTIVITY — We do not take projects we don't believe we can make a substantial difference in, or undertake goals we do not reasonably believe we can achieve.

DEPTH — We make every project a deep dive, probing past surface insights and asking tough questions.

SOCIAL CONSCIENCE — We avoid projects that are exploitative, amoral or unkind in nature.

LEARNING — We go out of our way to educate the public — and learn from the public, too. We make space to not know, to ask, to hunt answers and to share expertise across + within departments.


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Do you do custom projects?
Yes. Contact us and we can discuss the details.
Pricing is dependent on project scope, timeline and data provided.
Sentiment analysis is the analysis of large volumes of data for the purpose of shedding light on opinion or feeling.
Our API is still in development. It is scheduled for a late 2022 release. Join our waitlist for updates.
Yes! You can begin a conversation with us or request a pitch using our investor's form.
Does Elaboration analyze data in other languages?
Our current offerings are only in English but we will expand into other languages.
Yes! Depending on project needs and departmental capabilities, we are happy to discuss consulting with or collaborating with your data science team.
Yes! Pre-sales clients receive early API access, and anyone can apply to be a beta tester. If you're a good fit, we'd love to include you.
Elaboration has no partisan affiliation for clients. Our client selection is based on our competencies and general principles. We endeavor to keep all of our public Language Labs reports nonpartisan.


Praise for Elaboration Labs

  • "Communication is both a skill and an art. The skill is difficult to acquire without extensive training. However, this group of exceptional communicators have developed a remarkable tool to raise your communication level to an art."

    Beverly B.,

    Non-violent Communication Trainer

  • "This group is highly intuitive."

    Yan K.,

    sales, national retailer

  • "Listening for — and identifying — the emotional meaning behind the words a person uses will give you a better understanding of what that person is actually saying — and more importantly, what they are actually feeling."

    Beverly B.,

    Non-violent Communication Trainer

  • "Their EQ is off the charts."

    Yan K.,

    sales, national retailer

  • "If you are correct in identifying the emotions behind others' words, your communication moves to a higher level. Your responses based on this knowledge will be more welcomed because the person will know that they have actually been heard and understood."

    Beverly B.,

    Non-violent Communication Trainer

  • "When dealing with others on any level, whether business or personal, having someone who can read and 'sense' between the lines will help to improve all your interactions, because so much may be left unsaid."

    Yan K.,

    sales, national retailer

  • "I underwent gender transition at work in a customer-facing role. I had multiple international accounts, several of which were in countries in which being transgender was illegal; additionally, my manager was a socially conservative resident of Taiwan and I was based in the U.S.

    Elaboration's EQ services were essential in parsing out the desires and insecurities of management and HR, and assisted me in developing a strategy for a global information rollout.

    The language and method employed was later codified into company policy that won an excellence award from the Human Rights Campaign, and is currently being copied by our peers."

    Carol L.,

    major chemical supplier

  • "My interview with elaboration was scheduled to last one hour. I believe we ended up talking for nearly three hours. My interviewer asked such unique and compelling questions that caused the time to fly by. And she truly listened to my answers as a conservative. Her follow up questions made me think deeper without being argumentative. I look forward to reading the results."

    Roger D.,

    qualitative interview participant

  • "This is the link to connecting the pieces and getting to the heart of the issue."

    Yan K.,

    sales, national retailer


Our Technology

Technological tools for the human touch

Sentiment Analysis Straight to the Heart.

Your first kiss. The last time you held your parents' hand. The moment you met your child. How many of these personal moments do you classify as "positive," "negative," or "neutral?"

We don't, either. Since 2013, Elaboration has plunged head-first into the emotional waters of natural language, navigating the rich layers of what it is to be human.

Machine Learning, People Centered.

Elaboration's intuitive KNOWER™ algorithm brings into balance the speed and precision of Artificial Intelligence with the important and passionate feelings we experience everyday.

Our model combines supervised learning - the kind human brains are naturally whizzes at - with unsupervised learning that seeks the connections we miss, in order to listen and respond to human expression.

Close Listening at High Volume

Big Data has transformed the way we listen to the world, with more breadth, inclusion and diversity than ever before. But these vast datasets lose a little magic in the process: that sigh, that little gasp, the squeal of delight.

Fusing linguistics, behavioral studies, statistics, and AI, Elaboration captures these nuances. Our technology provides clients with high-fidelity headphones - to better listen to the sound of customers, loved ones, society, and the self.

How it Works: Emotion in Full Color

  1. We focus on the words you say: text messages, e-mails, customer feedback, stump speeches, casual conversations, social media rants, and online interactions.
  2. Our Knowledge Network of Wide Emotional Recognition (KNOWER) processes your data, searching for emotional levels, angles, and associations.
  3. We display your data to you in ways that heighten emotional awareness, reveal motivations and foster connection - to really reach your audience and cultivate relationships.

The Future of Feeling:
Engineering and Empathy

Communication really works when we see eye-to-eye, understanding the heart of another's experience. Elaboration's technology helps us find the humanity in the way we approach each other, and compassion for how we approach ourselves.

Our relationships with each other literally keep the planet going — while our relationship with technology can threaten or make us thrive.

Elaboration fosters functional empathy building between humans and machines, for harmonious, ethical advances that enhance our experiences of ourselves, each other, and the world.


Our Products

Emotional Analysis, Accelerated by High Technology


User-Friendly Research for Advertisers

What does your brand need?

Groundwork

Get an expert 360-degree assessment of your brand, from market penetration to audience associations and judgements. Our Groundwork package offers social listening and unprecedented depth, with a focus on value alignment and brand perception.

Reconnaissance

Deconstruct rival brands' influence, covering subtle strengths and weaknesses in a head-to-head match-up with direct competitors. We identify ways you can leverage the competition to strengthen brand presence and increase market share.

Resonate

Our Resonate package is tuned for perfect timing. Whether for a carefully planned event, major sponsorship, or product release, this coordinated communications package utilizes timing-based social media listening, engagement-inducing recommendations, responsive communications, and emotionally agile next moves.

Connect

Analyze your brand's latest campaign for emotional response, discovering which aspects succeeded in connecting with your audience — and why. We partner with you to craft authentic messaging with language that lands and inspires attachment for long-term relationships with your demographic.

Resilience

Stay a step ahead using situational analysis as a way to recover quickly from negative incidents. We help you put a plan in place to guide the conversation, navigate impasses or plan a comeback that's smarter + stronger than before. Our Resilience package analyzes the emotional takeaways of gaffes + mishaps to help you bounce back effectively.

Emotional Quotient

Ensure that your consumers feel cared for and understood. Our Emotional Quotient package provides you with detailed sentiment analysis, psychological insights and a deeper understanding of your relational dynamics with your audience.

Eye to Eye

Understand how your audience thinks and feels by discovering correlations between their mindset and your brand. Get to know their passions, pain points, personality types, and journeys. Figure out who they are, beyond surface-level demographics and basic insights.


Hear the Heart of Your Audience

Even the most expert surveys — or the most robust dashboards — can't tell you what your fan base authentically thinks and feels. In an age where audience choices are deeply rooted in emotion and belief systems, understanding your core + potential audience is key.

Elaboration brings together media veterans, human development experts, linguists and computer scientists to uncover the "feeling factor" among your viewers, readers, fanbase, followers, and more.

What does your personal brand need?

Base Camp

Develop fresh insights about the individuals that make up your fanbase. Deeply understand audience relationships to your brand, what’s behind core perceptions, and reactions to content.
 
Deeply understand passions and priorities to ignite more excitement, build loyalty, and feed the fire by responding expertly to what inspires your fans most.

Perfect Pitch

Increase influence, prestige and name recognition with our nuanced communications reviews. Strengthen reputation by refining your communications to achieve perfect pitch. From social impact to demographic reach, our holistic communications team ensures your words make maximum impact.

Heartbeats

Discover what your fans are responding to, find new avenues for connection, and spot up-and-coming trends. Take advantage of opportunities for collaboration + partnerships by identifying fanbase overlap.

Spyglass

Understand what your rivals are doing right — and wrong — in their approach. Capitalize on your strengths, recalibrate your image, and generate authentic appeal.

Identification

Find out who your fans are beneath the surface, what motivates them, and what elicits their strongest emotional reactions.

Change of Heart Suite

Help audiences understand your platform on a deep, emotionally intuitive level. Position your message to impact minds and hearts for a cause by sharing in a way that resonates with their feelings and intersects with important values.


Emotional Impact for Your Nonprofit

Our Foundations consulting line leverages Emotion Science, linguistics and Big Data to increase the impact your organization makes on a daily basis. From small, pivotal internal moments to bold public initiatives, we partner with your organization for social good.

What does your organization need?

Megaphone

Activate supporters at critical moments, whether mobilizing for contributions, events, or activism. Includes fine-tuning of fundraising messages, campaign planning, and annual appeals strategy.

Stacking Up

Find out how your organization measures against others in your space. Use our assessments to stand out in the field of grant proposals and donor solicitations.

Soul Mates

Discover and screen new prospects well-matched to your organizations core values and needs. Target ideal benefactors, learn what they have in common, and how to best inspire contributions.

Congruence

This package holds space for alignment and reflection: Can we do more to embody our mission statement? Are our values shining throughout our processes and budget? How are we serving special populations internally? With an emphasis on integrity, harmony and morale, this package strengthens your organization from the inside-out.

Changing Minds

Whether locally or with the public at large, prepare initiatives that create attitudinal shifts that make a difference. Prime, assess and track social attitudes around your cause over time.

Art of Repair

Moments of repair can matter just as much as initial perception. Discover donor and client needs when the organization falls short. Strengthen messaging weaknesses to transform scandals and speak to the heart of divisive issues.


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Singular Experiments. Collective Solutions.

Elaboration's Language Laboraties, we take on special projects that tackle interesting, unsolved problems through a sociological lens.

Elaboration donates our technology resources to initiatitives that serve the public, applying computational linguistics, machine learning and cognitive computing to the study of real world problems.

Combining the Power of Cause & Affect

Since October 2017, Elaboration has tackled topics such as human trafficking, veteran and military welfare, political tensions, and prejudice on digital platforms.

We create novel tools to access social issues, leveraging a range of natural language processing, data science, affect detection, and computer vision appproaches and metrics.

Tour our Language Labs blog to view the results of our latest explorations.


news about elaboration labs

  • Elaboration Teaches Computers and Companies to Understand Human Emotion

    "Startup Sandbox member company detects underlying feelings and frustrations in text interactions."

    READ MORE

  • Elaboration: Machine Learning, People Centered

    Elaboration’s technology will provide other tech companies with the ability to deeply understand nuanced emotion.

    READ MORE


Connect With Us

Emotional Insight Within Reach


Feeling Facts Quiz

Test your emotional knowledge by taking our Feelings Facts Quiz Card challenge. Separate emotional myth from fact, click to check out Academic Research sources, and share Emotional Trivia with friends over e-mail or social media.

Check back periodically for more affective games, quizzes, and education about Emotion.

anger

TRUE or FALSE:

Dogs respond to anger by growing very suspicious.

FALSE TRUE
TRUE
A 2016 study tested dogs' reactions to happy vs. angry tones, while owners pointed. Dogs went to investigate the happily introduced spots, while angry tones turned them into cautious canines.
Source
sadness

TRUE or FALSE:

About 1 in 10 teenagers will experience depression before they graduate high school.

FALSE TRUE
FALSE
The rate of depression in teenagers 2-3 TIMES that: between 20-30% of teens will experience a major clinical depressive episode before the age of 18.
Source
grief

TRUE or FALSE:

When grief arises, it always occurs after a great loss.

FALSE TRUE
FALSE
Some people — particularly caregivers — can experience a phenomenon called "Anticipatory Grief," which causes grieving BEFORE a severe loss has even occurred.
Source
worry

TRUE or FALSE:

Science has indicated that you can literally take years off your life by worrying.

FALSE TRUE
TRUE
Researchers at Purdue tracked 1,663 aging men, controlling for health, depression and age, and found that worriers (high in anxiety and preoccupation) correlated with mortality and survival. Worriers who increased their worrying over time fared even worse!
Source
happiness

TRUE or FALSE:

Maybe money can buy happiness after all: the GDP growth in any given country has been correlated with residents' happiness levels.

FALSE TRUE
FALSE
Economist Richard Easterlin discovered that the GDP growth does not predict happiness gains. However, a 2013 study found that household income rises did affect happiness levels for the better.
Source
admiration

TRUE or FALSE:

A recent study of academic papers found that women tend to self-admire their own research about 50% more frequently than men do.

FALSE TRUE
FALSE
Based on 1.6 million papers analyzed from 1950 to the present, researchers in 2015 found that men are actually 150% as likely as women to quote or cite themselves in their own academic research.
Source
love

TRUE or FALSE:

Creative types tend to experience less decline of passion in their romantic relationships than their less artistic peers.

FALSE TRUE
TRUE
Creative individuals tend to notice passion declines more than the next person, but also report higher levels of passion in their relationships. Creative types also rated higher levels of beauty in partners, and creativity as a partner trait significantly moderated the risk of declining passion.
Source
peace

TRUE or FALSE:

Peaceful, relaxing feelings can act as a powerful anti-oxidant for the body.

FALSE TRUE
TRUE
Research suggests that practicing relaxation responses can effect genes by inducing anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory responses. These may be an evolutionary response aimed at counteracting the damaging effects of stress.
Source
infatuation

TRUE or FALSE:

High school crushes disrupt sleep quality and makes dreams more negative.

FALSE TRUE
FALSE
In 2017, German researchers found that infatuation itself had no bearing on sleep or dream quality. However, unrequited love did disrupt sleep among infatuated adolescents, disrupting sleep patterns, causing more negative dreams, and making nightmares stick.
Source
fear

TRUE or FALSE:

Merely hearing a blood-curdling scream can cause you to experience fear.

FALSE TRUE
TRUE
Researchers at NYU found that the natural volume variation — occurring 30 to 150 times per second — in screams catches others' attention. This factor, known as acoustic "roughness," stimulates bloodflow to the amygdala in hearers, causing them to process danger signals.
Source