132,831 research outputs found
Semi-Supervised Speech Emotion Recognition with Ladder Networks
Speech emotion recognition (SER) systems find applications in various fields
such as healthcare, education, and security and defense. A major drawback of
these systems is their lack of generalization across different conditions. This
problem can be solved by training models on large amounts of labeled data from
the target domain, which is expensive and time-consuming. Another approach is
to increase the generalization of the models. An effective way to achieve this
goal is by regularizing the models through multitask learning (MTL), where
auxiliary tasks are learned along with the primary task. These methods often
require the use of labeled data which is computationally expensive to collect
for emotion recognition (gender, speaker identity, age or other emotional
descriptors). This study proposes the use of ladder networks for emotion
recognition, which utilizes an unsupervised auxiliary task. The primary task is
a regression problem to predict emotional attributes. The auxiliary task is the
reconstruction of intermediate feature representations using a denoising
autoencoder. This auxiliary task does not require labels so it is possible to
train the framework in a semi-supervised fashion with abundant unlabeled data
from the target domain. This study shows that the proposed approach creates a
powerful framework for SER, achieving superior performance than fully
supervised single-task learning (STL) and MTL baselines. The approach is
implemented with several acoustic features, showing that ladder networks
generalize significantly better in cross-corpus settings. Compared to the STL
baselines, the proposed approach achieves relative gains in concordance
correlation coefficient (CCC) between 3.0% and 3.5% for within corpus
evaluations, and between 16.1% and 74.1% for cross corpus evaluations,
highlighting the power of the architecture
Predictive biometrics: A review and analysis of predicting personal characteristics from biometric data
Interest in the exploitation of soft biometrics information has continued to develop over the last decade or so. In comparison with traditional biometrics, which focuses principally on person identification, the idea of soft biometrics processing is to study the utilisation of more general information regarding a system user, which is not necessarily unique. There are increasing indications that this type of data will have great value in providing complementary information for user authentication. However, the authors have also seen a growing interest in broadening the predictive capabilities of biometric data, encompassing both easily definable characteristics such as subject age and, most recently, `higher level' characteristics such as emotional or mental states. This study will present a selective review of the predictive capabilities, in the widest sense, of biometric data processing, providing an analysis of the key issues still adequately to be addressed if this concept of predictive biometrics is to be fully exploited in the future
Emotional intelligence, reflective abilities and wellbeing in social workers
Research reportIn order to inform the curriculum and the development of supportive structures to support the work-related wellbeing of trainee social workers, this research project had several aims. It examined the key motivators to enter social work, together with the sources of social support
and the coping strategies that students draw on to help them manage the demands of study and placement experiences Several emotional and social competencies (i.e. emotional intelligence, reflective ability, empathy and social competence) are also investigated as potential predictors of resilience. Also examined was whether resilience predicted psychological distress, and the role played by resilience in the relationship between emotional intelligence and distress was assessed
The role of trait emotional intelligence and social and emotional skills in studentsâ emotional and behavioural strengths and difficulties : a study of Greek adolescentsâ perceptions
The emergence of the Trait Emotional Intelligence construct shifted the interest in
personality research to the investigation of the effect of global personality characteristics
on behaviour. A second body of research in applied settings, the Social and Emotional
Learning movement, emphasized the cultivation of emotional and social skills for
positive relationships in a school environment. In this paper we investigate the role of
both personality traits and social and emotional skills, in the occurrence of emotional and
behavioural strengths and difficulties, according to adolescent studentsâ self-perceptions.
Five hundred and fifty-nine students from state secondary schools in Greece, aged 12-14
years old, completed The Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Adolescent Short
Form, The Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters, and The Strengths and
Difficulties Questionnaire. It was found that students with higher Trait Emotional
Intelligence and stronger social and emotional skills were less likely to present
emotional, conduct, hyperactivity and peer difficulties and more likely to present
prosocial behaviour. Gender was a significant factor for emotional difficulties and grade
for peer difficulties. The paper describes the underlying mechanisms of studentsâ
emotional and behavioural strengths and difficulties, and provides practical implications
for educators to improve the quality of studentsâ lives in schools.peer-reviewe
- âŠ