Emotion Detector System: How does it work?

Most of the time emotion is acquired unwittingly in human beings depending upon the situation and circumstances. Estimating emotions is likely to be helpful because emotion is regarded as one of the profound factors which influence everyday life activities, help us judge or choose between the available choices; and can alert us to avoid danger. Estimation of emotion or Emotion recognition with emotion detector has become popular in the field of human computer interface; it can play an important role in improvement of interaction between humans and computers. If the emotion recognition and elicitation is done in an effective way, it is possible to make humans interact with computers the same way the humans interact with each other. Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human Robotic Interaction (HRI) are the major areas where emotional intelligence can be implemented.

Emotion recognition by device can be done in various ways, such as affective computing techniques and psychophysiological measurement. Affective computing is applicable in the recognition and synthesis of facial expression, voice inflection, gestures, and postures. These methods are not reliable in emotion detection as individuals can hide affective states of mind. In order to overcome this problem, the use of psychophysiological measurement was introduced. This technique is now being used actively to acquire emotional states using different biosensors like Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), Blood Volume Pulse (BVP), Electromyography (EMG), Electrocardiography (ECG), temperature, and few others. The signals obtained using these measurements are authentic, thus not alterable and cannot be concealed while measuring them, because they are generated due to the activation of sympathetic nerves of Autonomous Nervous System (ANS).

The autonomic nervous system is the subsection of the peripheral nervous system that regulates body activities that are usually not under conscious control. Biofeedback method completes the loop among autonomic functions and conscious awareness.

Block diagram view if ANS with biofeedback

Emotions are generated implicitly when any stimulus elicits some feeling, which strikes on the brain (psychology) and makes alterations on physical response. Emotion Detector is an embedded system for estimating the emotions based on collected data. It senses different emotions by using the machine learning algorithms developed on embedded microcontroller (MSP430F2013 in our case). Intelligent machine learning algorithms that can be employed are Naïve Bayes Classifier and the Markov Model.

In medical field such device has lots of applications like for example it can be extremely beneficially when treating the paralytic patients. Another example is that a robot based on emotion detector can offer mobility to quadriplegic patients etc. Emotion detector based systems may find applications in crime investigations or during criminal interrogations etc.

By - Dr. Tanu Sharma, Associate Professor, CSE, Chitkara University, H.P