Real-time vocal emotion recognition in artistic installations and interactive storytelling: Experiences and lessons learnt from CALLAS and IRIS

Most emotion recognition systems still rely exclusively on prototypical emotional vocal expressions that may be uniquely assigned to a particular class. In realistic applications, there is, however, no guarantee that emotions are expressed in a prototypical manner. In this paper, we report on challenges that arise when coping with non-prototypical emotions in the context of the CALLAS project and the IRIS network. CALLAS aims to develop interactive art installations that respond to the multimodal emotional input of performers and spectators in real-time. IRIS is concerned with the development of novel technologies for interactive storytelling. Both research initiatives represent an extreme case of non-prototypicality since neither the stimuli nor the emotional responses to stimuli may be considered as prototypical.