Towards affective sensing

Abstract

This paper describes ongoing work towards building a multimodal computer system capable of sensing the affective state of a user. Two major problem areas exist in the affective communication research. Firstly, affective states are defined and described in an inconsistent way. Secondly, the type of training data commonly used gives an oversimplified picture of affective expression. Most studies ignore the dynamic, versatile and personalised nature of affective expression and the influence that social setting, context and culture have on its rules of display. We present a novel approach to affective sensing, using a generic model of affective communication and a set of ontologies to assist in the analysis of concepts and to enhance the recognition process. Whilst the scope of the ontology provides for a full range of multimodal sensing, this paper focuses on spoken language and facial expressions as examples. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.