Automatic recognition of emotions from speech: A review of the literature and recommendations for practical realisation

Abstract

In this article we give guidelines on how to address the major technical challenges of automatic emotion recognition from speech in human-computer interfaces, which include audio segmentation to find appropriate units for emotions, extraction of emotion relevant features, classification of emotions, and training databases with emotional speech. Research so far has mostly dealt with offline evaluation of vocal emotions, and online processing has hardly been addressed. Online processing is, however, a necessary prerequisite for the realization of human-computer interfaces that analyze and respond to the user's emotions while he or she is interacting with an application. By means of a sample application, we demonstrate how the challenges arising from online processing may be solved. The overall objective of the paper is to help readers to assess the feasibility of human-computer interfaces that are sensitive to the user's emotional voice and to provide them with guidelines of how to technically realize such interfaces. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.