US Patent 10140883 Self-learning surveys for open-ended analysis

A method of automatically evolving survey questions includes receiving, at a processor, a first set of textual responses to at least one open-ended question in a survey, reformatting the first set of textual responses as a set of possible textual responses in the form of closed-ended questions with numerical ratings as options, storing the set of possible textual responses in a memory in communication with the processor, selecting and transmitting a subset of the set of possible textual response to survey recipients, receiving, at the processor, participant numerical ratings for each textual response, using the processor to generate a confidence measure and score for each possible textual response based upon the participant ratings, generating a ranked list, with the processor, including the confidence measures, storing the ranked list, and converting at least one of the original open-ended question in the survey to a closed-ended ended question, using a subset of the textual responses.