Abstract: An example of a distributed discernment system including a discernment server and a communications interface permitting bi-directional communications to and from the discernment server; and a plurality of human interface devices, each including a speaker, a microphone, a processor running a local processing program, and a system interface permitting bi-directional communications between the human interface device and the discernment server, where the diagnostic program running on the discernment server is adapted to generate interview instructions provided to the interface devices and the interface devices are adapted receive interview instructions from the discernment server, present a verbal question to a human interviewee; receive and process sensor data from the microphone to determine whether the microphone sensor data corresponds to a complete human voice response to the presented verbal question.

Abstract: A distributed discernment system that includes discernment server including a processer running a diagnostic program and server interface permitting communications to and from the discernment server where the discernment system communicates with two or more human interface devices, where each human interface device includes display capable of presenting a video segment of a virtual human interviewer asking a question to an interviewee and sensors capable of detecting various responses of a human interviewee to each presented question where the discernment server includes a diagnostic that generates interview instructions to be provided to a plurality of human interface devices over the communications network, wherein the instructions provided to a given human interface device are intended to cause the human interface device to present certain questions to a human interviewee interacting with the device and wherein the discernment server is adapted to receive data from each of a plurality of the human interfac