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copyright lastupdated subcollection
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2015, 2019
2019-03-07
personality-insights

{:shortdesc: .shortdesc} {:new_window: target="_blank"} {:tip: .tip} {:important: .important} {:note: .note} {:deprecated: .deprecated} {:pre: .pre} {:codeblock: .codeblock} {:screen: .screen} {:javascript: .ph data-hd-programlang='javascript'} {:java: .ph data-hd-programlang='java'} {:python: .ph data-hd-programlang='python'} {:swift: .ph data-hd-programlang='swift'}

Release notes

{: #release-notes}

The following sections document the new features and changes that were included for each release of the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service. Unless otherwise noted, all changes are compatible with earlier releases and are automatically and transparently available to all new and existing applications. {: shortdesc}

The release notes document the service version and interface version for all recent updates. You specify the interface version with the version query parameter to use new features and functionality made available with that update. The service returns both versions with the X-Service-Api-Version response header. {: note}

21 December 2018

{: #December2018}

Service version - 3.4.5
Interface version - 2017-10-13

Version 2 of the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} API has been removed from service. Version 3 of the service was released on 19 October 2016. At that time, users were strongly encouraged to migrate from version 2 as soon as possible.

18 November 2018

{: #November2018b}

Service version - 3.4.5
Interface version - 2017-10-13

The {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service is now available in the {{site.data.keyword.cloud}} London location (eu-gb). Like all locations, London uses token-based Identity and Access Management (IAM) authentication. All new services instances that you create in this location use IAM authentication.

7 November 2018

{: #November2018a}

Service version - 3.4.5
Interface version - 2017-10-13

The {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service is now available in the {{site.data.keyword.cloud_notm}} Tokyo location (jp-tok). Like all locations, Tokyo uses token-based Identity and Access Management (IAM) authentication. All new services instances that you create in this location use IAM authentication.

Older releases

{: #older}

30 October 2018

{: #October2018}

Service version - 3.4.5
Interface version - 2017-10-13

The {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service has migrated to token-based Identity and Access Management (IAM) authentication for all locations. All {{site.data.keyword.cloud_notm}} services now use IAM authentication. The {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service migrated in each location on the following dates:

  • Dallas (us-south): October 30, 2018
  • Frankfurt (eu-de): October 30, 2018
  • Washington, DC (us-east): June 11, 2018
  • Sydney (au-syd): June 4, 2018

The migration to IAM authentication affects new and existing service instances differently:

  • All new service instances that you create in any location now use IAM authentication to access the service. You can pass either a bearer token or an API key: Tokens support authenticated requests without embedding service credentials in every call; API keys use HTTP basic authentication. When you use any of the {{site.data.keyword.watson}} SDKs, you can pass the API key and let the SDK manage the lifecycle of the tokens.

  • Existing service instances that you created in a location before the indicated migration date continue to use the {username} and {password} from their previous Cloud Foundry service credentials for authentication until you update them to use IAM authentication. Because the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service is stateless, you can perform the following steps to convert an existing service instance to use IAM authentication:

    1. Delete and re-create the service instance.
    2. Modify your application code to use IAM authentication.

For more information, see the following documentation:

11 June 2018

{: #June2018b}

Service version - 3.4.5
Interface version - 2017-10-13

For service instances and applications that are hosted in Washington, DC (us-east), the service now supports a new API authentication process. For more information, see the 30 October 2018 service update.

4 June 2018

{: #June2018a}

Service version - 3.4.5
Interface version - 2017-10-13

For service instances and applications that are hosted in Sydney (au-syd), the service now supports a new API authentication process. For more information, see the 30 October 2018 service update.

23 March 2018

{: #March2018}

Service version - 3.4.4
Interface version - 2017-10-13

  • The service was updated with small defect fixes. The changes were specific to the Arabic, Japanese, and Korean languages.
  • The Accept request header is now required with the POST /v3/profile method. You must specify either application/json or text/csv.

13 October 2017

{: #October2017}

Service version - 3.4.0
Interface version - 2017-10-13

  • The Trait object of a personality profile now includes a significant field. A separate Trait object reports the results for each Big Five dimension, Big Five facet, Need, and Value. The significant field of each instance of the object identifies whether the results for the characteristic are meaningful for the input language (Content-Language) of the request:

    • For English, Spanish, and Japanese, the field is always true for all personality characteristics.
    • For Arabic and Korean, the field is true for most personality characteristics but is false for characteristics for which the service's models are unable to produce meaningful results. The field is false for a constant set of characteristics. For a complete list, see Limitations for Arabic and Korean input. Do not rely on the results for any characteristic for which the field is false.

    For more information about the service's JSON response content, see Understanding a JSON profile.

  • CSV output also now includes columns whose headings are named *_significant. Each column provides a boolean value to indicate whether a characteristic is meaningful. For more information about the service's CSV response content, see Understanding a CSV profile.

  • To use this latest version of the interface, specify the interface version 2017-10-13 with the version parameter.

18 September 2017

{: #September2017}

Service version - 3.3.0
Interface version - 2016-10-19

The service now supports input content in Korean (ko). For more information about the average Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and average correlation for Korean input, see Per-language average MAE and correlation.

The service's models are unable to produce meaningful percentiles and raw scores for a few personality characteristics of Korean input. For more information about the results for these characteristics, see Limitations for Arabic and Korean input.

10 April 2017

{: #April2017}

Service version - 3.1.7
Interface version - 2016-10-19

  • The service changed how it handles requests with large amounts of input content. The service accepts a maximum of 20 MB of content. However, for the models that are based on GloVe, accuracy levels off at around 3000 words of input. This behavior is different from the older models, where more text produced greater accuracy. In general, the service no longer needs as much content to produce an accurate profile. But more content requires more processing time, which can cause a request to time out before it completes.

    Therefore, the service now extracts and uses only the first 250 KB of content, not counting any HTML or JSON markup, from large requests. This figure does not map to an exact number of words, which varies based on the language and nature of the text. In English, for example, average word length is between four and five characters, so this figure provides around 50,000 words, which is at least 15 times more words than the service needs. The word_count field of the response JSON indicates the number of words that the service uses for a request, which can be less than the number of words in the input.

    Because it still bases a profile on many more words than it strictly needs for maximum accuracy, the service produces a profile that is as accurate as in the past. However, the service responds much faster than before. For requests for which it uses only a portion of the input content, the service returns the following CONTENT_TRUNCATED warning message to make the user aware of the fact:

    For maximum accuracy while also optimizing processing time, only the first 250KB of input text (excluding markup) was analyzed. Accuracy levels off at approximately 3K words so this did not affect the accuracy of the profile.

    For more information, see Providing sufficient input.

  • The service was updated with small security fixes.

1 March 2017

{: #March2017}

Service version - 3.1.6
Interface version - 2016-10-19

The service was updated with small enhancements to logging.

20 February 2017

{: #February2017b}

Service version - 3.1.5.1
Interface version - 2016-10-19

The service was updated with small security and defect fixes, and to improve metering of API calls.

13 February 2017

{: #February2017}

Service version - 3.1.4
Interface version - 2016-10-19

  • The list of consumption preferences was refined. The list now includes only those preferences that are most important to understanding an individual's dominant lifestyle habits and consumer characteristics. The list of consumption preferences was shortened from 51 to 42. The remaining preferences more concisely express the author's likelihood to prefer different products, services, and activities, making it even easier to act on the results.

    The service no longer returns the following nine consumption preferences:

    • The consumption_preferences_shopping category no longer includes
      • consumption_preferences_automobile_resale_value
    • The consumption_preferences_reading category no longer includes
      • consumption_preferences_read_motive_enjoyment
      • consumption_preferences_read_motive_information
      • consumption_preferences_read_motive_mandatory
      • consumption_preferences_read_motive_relaxation
    • The consumption_preferences_health_and_activity category no longer includes
      • consumption_preferences_adventurous_sports
      • consumption_preferences_fast_food_frequency
    • The consumption_preferences_volunteering category no longer includes
      • consumption_preferences_volunteering_time
      • consumption_preferences_volunteer_learning

    For more information about the remaining preferences, see Consumption preferences.

  • For Arabic input, information about the average Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and average correlation is now available in Per-language average MAE and correlation. In addition, the service's models are unable to produce meaningful percentiles and raw scores for a collection of personality characteristics. For more information about the results for these characteristics, see Limitations for Arabic and Korean input.

13 January 2017

{: #January2017}

Service version - 3.1.2.1
Interface version - 2016-10-19

The Personality insights service was updated with a few small defect fixes.

15 December 2016

{: #December2016}

Service version - 3.1.1
Interface version - 2016-10-19

For Arabic input text, the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service now uses GloVe to develop a personality profile. The service no longer uses the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) psycholinguistics dictionary for any language. For more information about how the service develops a personality portrait, see How personality characteristics are inferred.

15 November 2016

{: #November2016}

Service version - 3.1.0
Interface version - 2016-10-19

  • For Japanese input text, the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service now uses GloVe to develop a personality profile. The service no longer uses the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) psycholinguistics dictionary for Japanese input. For more information, see How personality characteristics are inferred.
  • The name fields of the ConsumptionPreferencesCategory and ConsumptionPreferences objects are now returned with localized strings in the language that is specified with the Accept-Language request header.
  • The update includes a few small defect fixes.

20 October 2016

{: #October2016b}

Service version - 3.0.0
Interface version - 2016-10-19

The {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service and its API were updated significantly. The API was incremented from version 2 to version 3 and offers new features. The remaining sections of this release note describe the changes in detail.

Version 3 is not compatible with version 2. You are encouraged to migrate to version 3 to take advantage of the new features and changes. Migration to version 3 consists only of updating and redeploying your applications to use the changes that are described in these release notes for the new version. You do not need to create a new instance of the service in {{site.data.keyword.cloud_notm}}; you only need to call the v3 API.

Version 2 of the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} API is to be removed from service soon. You are strongly encouraged to migrate to version 3 as soon as possible. {: note}

More information about version 3

This documentation now describes version 3 of the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} API. The following sections summarize the changes for the new version of the interface:

Changes to parameters of the /v3/profile method

Parameters of the /v3/profile method changed:

  • The API now offers an optional query parameter named consumption_preferences. The parameter accepts a boolean value that indicates whether information that is inferred about consumption preferences is to be returned with the results. By default, the information is not included in the response. For more information, see New consumption preferences feature.

  • The API now includes a required version query parameter. The parameter accepts a string that identifies the requested version of the API and the response format as a date in the form YYYY-MM-DD; for example, specify 2016-10-19 for October 19, 2016. This parameter allows the service to update its API or response format for new versions without breaking existing clients. The initial string for version 3 of the API is 2016-10-19.

    The date that you specify does not need to match a version of the service exactly. The service uses the version that is no later than the date you provide. If you specify a date that is earlier than the release date of version 3, the service uses version 3 of the API. If you specify a date that is in the future or otherwise later than the most recent version, the service uses the latest version.

  • The name of the include_raw query parameter is now raw_scores.

  • The name of the headers query parameter is now csv_headers.

New consumption preferences feature

{: #cp}

The consumption preferences feature provides an indication of the author's tendency to exhibit different consumer tendencies. When you pass the consumption_preferences query parameter with a value of true to the /v3/profile method, the service returns extra results with the Profile object:

  • A consumption_preferences field that provides an array of ConsumptionPreferencesCategory objects.
  • Each ConsumptionPreferencesCategory object includes the following fields:
    • consumption_preference_category_id: The ID of one of the consumption preferences categories
    • name: The user-visible name of the category.
    • consumption_preferences: An array of ConsumptionPreferences objects that provides results that are inferred from the input text for the individual preferences of the category
  • Each ConsumptionPreferences object includes the following fields:

    • consumption_preference_id: The ID of one of the consumption preferences.

    • name: The user-visible name of the consumption preference.

    • score: The score for the consumption preference:

      • 0.0 indicates unlikely
      • 0.5 indicates neutrality
      • 1.0 indicates likely

      The scores for some preferences are binary and do not allow a neutral value. The score is an indication of preference based on the results that are inferred from the input text, not a normalized percentile.

For more information about the consumption preferences, see Consumption preferences.

The name field for both consumption preferences objects is always returned in English, regardless of the language specified with the Accept-Language request header. {: note}

Changes to JSON objects and fields

JSON input and output objects and their fields were simplified and clarified:

  • The following fields were removed from JSON ContentItem objects that you can pass to the /v3/profile method with a request:

    • userid
    • sourceid
    • charset (previously deprecated)

    You pass these objects in the body of a JSON request as elements of the contentItems array of the Content object.

  • The following fields of the JSON Profile object that is returned by the /v3/profile method changed:

    • The following fields were removed:

      • id
      • source

    • The tree field was removed. It is replaced by four new fields:

      • personality for Big Five personality characteristics.
      • needs for Needs characteristics.
      • values for Values characteristics.
      • behavior for temporal results about the distribution of the content over the days of the week and the hours of the day. This field is returned only for JSON input that is timestamped.

      This change effectively moves the results one level higher in the JSON Profile object, eliminating a level of recursion.

    • The name of the processed_lang field is now processed_language.

  • The following fields of JSON Trait objects that are returned by the /v3/profile method were renamed:

    • The name of the id field of the JSON Trait object is now trait_id.
    • The name of the percentage field of the JSON Trait object is now percentile.

  • The following fields of JSON Trait objects that are returned by the /v3/profile method were removed:

    • sampling_error
    • raw_sampling_error

    The service now reports an average Mean Absolute Error (MAE) that qualifies the precision of its results. For more information about the MAE for different amounts of input text, see Providing sufficient input.

  • JSON Trait objects are still returned for the personality, needs, and values fields of the Profile object. But the behavior field returns an array of JSON objects named Behavior that has the following fields:

    • trait_id
    • name
    • category
    • percentage

    In addition, behavioral information is no longer returned as a tree of values. The output consists of a single array that lists all temporal characteristics (day of week and time of day).

  • The name of the id field of the JSON Warnings object that can be returned by the /v3/profile method is now warnings_id.

Changes to JSON IDs

{: #ids}

The JSON IDs that the service returns for the trait_id (formerly id) field of the Trait and the new Behavior object changed:

  • The IDs for Big Five dimensions now begin with the string big5_.
  • The IDs for Big Five facets now begin with the string facet_.
  • The IDs for Needs now begin with the string need_.
  • The IDs for Values now begin with the string value_.
  • The IDs for all temporal characteristics now begin with the string behavior_.
  • The IDs for temporal characteristics that are related to time of day now use four-digit 24-hour time (for example, behavior_0000) rather than 12-hour time (for example, 0:00 am).
  • All characters are now lowercase.
  • Spaces and hyphens are now underscores.

Changes to CSV headers

{: #headers}

The optional column headers that the service can return for CSV output changed:

  • All of the changes that are described for the trait_id of the JSON output also apply to the CSV headers.
  • The headers for raw scores for Big Five dimensions now begin with the string big5_.
  • The headers for raw scores for Big Five facets now begin with the string facet_.
  • The headers for raw scores for Needs now begin with the string need_.
  • The headers for raw scores for Values now begin with the string value_.
  • The header for the processed language column is now processed_language rather than processed_lang.
  • The user and source_id columns are no longer returned.
  • All characters are now lowercase.
  • Spaces and hyphens are now underscores.

Removal of the visualize method

Version 2 of the service's API included a deprecated visualize method that was used in an earlier release to visualize the results of a call to the /v3/profile method. The visualize method has been removed from the service's API. The service continues to provide a collection of JavaScript files that enable graphic visualization of a profile. For more information, see Visualizing a profile.

12 October 2016

{: #October2016a}

For Spanish input text, the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service now uses GloVe to develop a personality profile. The service no longer uses the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) psycholinguistics dictionary for Spanish input. The service began to use the new model for English input text on August 31. It plans to apply the new model to the remaining input languages soon. For more information about the new model, see How personality characteristics are inferred.

31 August 2016

{: #August2016}

The service now uses GloVe to develop a personality profile. GloVe is an open-source word-embedding technique. For more information, see How personality characteristics are inferred. The service uses the new approach only for English input text. For other languages, the service continues to use the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) psycholinguistics dictionary. The service plans to use the open-vocabulary approach for all languages in the future.

For the new model used for English input, the service reports the average Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of the results for its trained model. For more information about how the MAE changes with different amounts of input text, see Providing sufficient input.

{{site.data.keyword.IBM_notm}} plans to report the MAE for non-English models in the future. {{site.data.keyword.IBM_notm}} plans to use the MAE instead of sampling errors to determine how the precision of the service changes based on the amount of input text that you provide.

14 July 2016

{: #July2016b}

  • For Arabic input, the service can now trim the amount of input text for performance reasons. At a certain threshold, the accuracy of the results for Arabic does not improve with more words. If the service trims Arabic input text, it returns a PARTIAL_TEXT_USED warning with the following message:

    The text provided to compute the profile was trimmed for performance reasons. This action does not affect the accuracy of the output, as not all of the input text was required.

  • The update includes defect fixes and internal improvements.

1 July 2016

{: #July2016a}

  • The pricing plans for the service now offer lower prices for {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} users. For more information, see the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service in the {{site.data.keyword.cloud_notm}} Catalog External link icon{: new_window}.

  • The list of supported response languages that you can specify with the Accept-Language header now includes

    • ar (Arabic)
    • de (German)
    • en (English, the default)
    • es (Spanish)
    • fr (French)
    • it (Italian)
    • ja (Japanese)
    • ko (Korean)
    • pt-br (Brazilian Portuguese)
    • zh-cn (Simplified Chinese)
    • zh-tw (Traditional Chinese)

    For more information, see Specifying request and response languages.

  • The /v2/profile method can now return the following HTTP status codes:

    • 429 Too Many Requests: The service is processing too many requests for the content language. Wait a short time and try the request again. If you are submitting many requests for the language, consider throttling the rate at which you submit requests.
    • 504 Gateway Timeout: The request timed out or took too long to process. Wait a short time and try the request again. If the input contained too many words (for example, more than 20,000), consider reducing the number of words but maintain the guidelines for meaningful input.

    The method no longer returns 503 Service Unavailable. For more information about possible response codes, see the API reference External link icon{: new_window}.

  • The update includes defect fixes and internal improvements.

7 June 2016

{: #June2016b}

  • The service now supports Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) to allow browser-based clients to call the service directly. For more information, see CORS support.
  • The service's performance for Japanese text improved significantly.
  • The update includes defect fixes and internal improvements.

1 June 2016

{: #June2016a}

The service was updated for defect fixes and internal improvements. A new top-level field, warnings, was also added to the JSON results that are returned by the service. For more information, see the API reference External link icon{: new_window}.

17 May 2016

{: #May2016}

The service was updated for defect fixes and internal improvements.

18 March 2016

{: #March2016}

The service now supports the following languages:

  • The service supports four languages for its input text: Arabic (ar), English (en), Spanish (es), and Japanese (ja). To specify the language, use the HTTP Content-Language header for plain text and HTML input or the language property of the ContentItem object for JSON input.
  • The service supports the same four languages for its response. To specify the language of the response, use the Accept-Language header.

You can use any combination of languages for the input and response. If you do not indicate a language, the service defaults to English. For more information, see Specifying request and response languages. You can also refer to the blog post Arabic and Japanese support is now available for {{site.data.keyword.IBM_notm}} {{site.data.keyword.watson}} {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} External link icon{: new_window}.

Because it requires significantly more computing cycles to analyze than other languages, Arabic content takes markedly longer to process. Although the service supports the same 20 MB restriction on the amount of input text for all languages, the practical limit for Arabic content might be lower to avoid timeouts. Japanese content also takes longer to process, but the delays are of less meaningful significance than they are for Arabic. {: note}

9 July 2015

{: #July2015}

  • Language support. You can analyze both English and Spanish content. You indicate the language of the input text with the Content-Language header of the /v2/profile method. For more information about specifying a language, see Specifying request and response languages.
  • Raw scores. You can request raw scores and raw sampling errors that are computed from the input text and the service's models. The values are not normalized or compared with a sample population. Raw scores are useful for customers who want to apply a custom normalization for a specific scenario or who do not require a comparison with a sample population. You request raw scores by setting the include_raw query parameter of the /v2/profile method to true. For more information, see Interpreting the numeric results.
  • Model enhancements. Based on its latest studies, {{site.data.keyword.IBM_notm}} further improved some of its approaches to inferring personality characteristics. The changes are transparent to the service's users; they do not invalidate any previous results that were obtained from the service. For more information about the studies and the service's approach to inference, see How personality characteristics are inferred.

23 February 2015

{: #February2015}

As of February 23, 2015, the {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service is the generally available (GA) version of the former User Modeling service, which was available as a beta release. The GA release requires that users migrate to an instance of the new service. The following differences exist between the beta and GA versions of the service.

  • The {{site.data.keyword.personalityinsightsshort}} service is compatible with the User Modeling service. The differences that are described provide more flexibility and improved results without affecting current applications.
  • The parameters with which you create the service in {{site.data.keyword.cloud_notm}} changed. You now use a service name of personality_insights instead of user_modeling and a service plan of "IBM Watson Personality Insights Monthly Plan" instead of user_modeling_free_plan.
  • The /v2/profile method accepts two new input formats. The Content-Type header now accepts the input formats plain text (text/plain), which is the default, and HTML (text/html), in addition to JSON (application/json).
  • The /v2/profile method now returns a new output format. The Accept header now accepts the output format CSV (text/csv) in addition to JSON (application/json), which is the default.
  • The /v2/profile method now includes a new output element, sampling_error, for each characteristic for which it reports a percentage value. The sampling error is returned as a double value that indicates the service's level of confidence in the author's percentile based on the input text.
  • The Needs model employs improved tokenization and processing to better normalize the distribution of values for its characteristics. You are advised to recompute any results that were generated by the User Modeling API.
  • The visualize method is now deprecated and will be removed entirely in a future release. You can use the personality.js JavaScript file that is provided with the sample application to achieve similar results from the client. The textsummary.js JavaScript file provides extra formatting for the results of the service.