Machine Learning Methods in the Application of Speech Emotion Recognition

Abstract

Machine Learning concerns the development of algorithms, which allows machine to learn via inductive inference based on observation data that represent incomplete information about statistical phenomenon. Classification, also referred to as pattern recognition, is an important task in Machine Learning, by which machines “learn” to automatically recognize complex patterns, to distinguish between exemplars based on their different patterns, and to make intelligent decisions. A pattern classification task generally consists of three modules, i.e. data representation (feature extraction) module, feature selection or reduction module, and classification module. The first module aims to find invariant features that are able to best describe the differences in classes. The second module of feature selection and feature reduction is to reduce the dimensionality of the feature vectors for classification. The classification module finds the actual mapping between patterns and labels based on features. The objective of this chapter is to investigate the machine learning methods in the application of automatic recognition of emotional states from human speech. It is well-known that human speech not only conveys linguistic information but also the paralinguistic information referring to the implicit messages such as emotional states of the speaker. Human emotions are the mental and physiological states associated with the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of humans. The emotional states conveyed in speech play an important role in human-human communication as they provide important information about the speakers or their responses to the outside world. Sometimes, the same sentences expressed in different emotions have different meanings. It is, thus, clearly important for a computer to be capable of identifying the emotional state expressed by a human subject in order for personalized responses to be delivered accordingly. 1