Techniques and applications of emotion recognition in speech

Affective computing opens a new area of research in computer science with the aim to improve the way how humans and machines interact. Recognition of human emotions by machines is becoming a significant focus in recent research in different disciplines related to information sciences and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). In particular, emotion recognition in human speech is important, as it is the primary communication tool of humans. This paper gives a brief overview of the current state of the research in this area with the aim to underline different techniques that are being used for detecting emotional states in vocal expressions. Furthermore, approaches for extracting speech features from speech datasets and machine learning methods with special emphasis on classifiers are analysed. In addition to the mentioned techniques, this paper also gives an outline of the areas where emotion recognition could be utilised such as healthcare, psychology, cognitive sciences and marketing.