Apparatus and method for determining an emotion state of a speaker

A method for determining an emotion state of a speaker, comprising:

• providing an acoustic space having one or more dimensions, wherein each dimension of the one or more dimensions of the acoustic space corresponds to at least one baseline acoustic characteristic;
• receiving a subject utterance of speech by a speaker;
• measuring, via one or more processors, one or more acoustic characteristic of the subject utterance of speech;
• comparing, via the one or more processors, each acoustic characteristic of the one or more acoustic characteristic of the subject utterance of speech to a corresponding one or more baseline acoustic characteristic;
• and
• determining, via the one or more processors, an emotion state of the speaker based on the comparison, wherein the emotion state of the speaker comprises at least one magnitude along a corresponding at least one of the one or more dimensions within the acoustic space.

A method for determining an emotion state of a speaker, comprising:

• providing an acoustic space having one or more dimensions, wherein each dimension of the one or more dimensions of the acoustic space corresponds to at least one baseline acoustic characteristic;
• receiving a training utterance of speech by the speaker;
• analyzing the training utterance of speech;
• modifying the acoustic space based on the analysis of the training reference of speech to produce a modified acoustic space having one or more modified dimensions, wherein each modified dimension of the one or more modified dimensions of the modified acoustic space corresponds to at least one modified baseline acoustic characteristic;
• receiving a subject utterance of speech by a speaker;
• measuring one or more acoustic characteristic of the subject utterance of speech;
• comparing each acoustic characteristic of the one or more acoustic characteristics of the subject utterance of speech to a corresponding one or more baseline acoustic characteristic;
• and
• determining an emotion state of the speaker based on the comparison.