MIIR Audio Technologies, a consortium of legendary music and film industry pioneers, producers, engineers and neuroscientists, has announced the company has been granted the first of several patents that will change the way songs are searched, selected and marketed to billions of consumers around the world.
The breakthrough by MIIR, six years in the making, enables companies or users to pinpoint the exact phrase in any song that elicits the most impactful neurological reaction in the human brain. These emotive moments – or “Chill Phrases” – occur in every one of the world’s 200,000,000 songs as well as the 100,000 new tracks that are being uploaded every day. The technology can assign a proprietary “Chill Index” rating to every song inside a catalogue and ranks songs in order of their impact on the brain’s emotional networks.
“MIIR provides a new way to search music,” says Paul J. Moe, CEO and co-inventor, MIIR. “MIIR’s algorithm and metadata helps to pinpoint the previously uncharted moments of songs that trigger the brain’s autonomic response and speak most to the emotions and moods that humans experience.”
MIIR’s technology enables music streaming services to organise libraries by emotional impact, provide listeners with more engaging song previews and scientifically determine which tracks to add to playlists or promote to consumers. Social media creators, advertising creatives, game developers and TV and film productions can synchronise a song’s emotional landscape to the exact action sequence and desired audience emotion for better engagement.
“When I initially met with neuroscientist Dr. Roger E. Dumas, MIIR’s chief science officer and lead inventor, and I heard MIIR’s hypothesis, that they could reverse engineer the brain’s emotional response to music, I was more than sceptical,” says Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, MIIR chief science advisor & co-inventor, New York Times bestselling author of This Is Your Brain on Music, and music producer. “So I had Roger process several very obscure songs on-the-spot. I was astonished that the technology nailed within a fraction of a second the exact portions of those songs that I find most impactful. We subsequently ran an independent MRI brain scan study and were amazed at the accuracy with which MIIR predicts the brain’s emotional reaction to music.”
“The MIIR technology has enormous potential to enhance music selection processes and expand the range of music that companies across music streaming, social media, film, TV and non-pharma medtech industries recommend to their users,” says Drew Denbo, MIIR senior business advisor, former head of business development Amazon Music.
MIIR Audio Technologies was awarded U.S. patent 11,635,394.