A Novel Feature for Emotion Recognition in Voice Based Applications

In the context of affective computing, a significant trend in multi modal human-computer interaction is focused to determine emotional status of the users. For a constructive and natural human-computer interaction, the computers should be able to adapt to the user's emotional state and respond appropriately. This work proposes few simple and robust features in the framework of determining emotions from speech. Our approach is suitable for voice based applications, such as call centers or interactive voice systems, which are dependent on telephone conversations. For a typical call center application, it is crucial to recognize and classify agitation (anger, happiness, fear, and disgust) and calm (neutral, sadness, and boredom) callers, for the systems to respond appropriately. For instance, in a typical voice based application, the system should be able to either apologize or appreciate the problem of the caller suitably, if necessary by directing the call to the supervisor concerned.