A Review of Key Technologies for Emotion Analysis Using Multimodal Information

Emotion analysis, an integral aspect of human–machine interactions, has witnessed significant advancements in recent years. With the rise of multimodal data sources such as speech, text, and images, there is a profound need for a comprehensive review of pivotal elements within this domain. Our paper delves deep into the realm of emotion analysis, examining multimodal data sources encompassing speech, text, images, and physiological signals. We provide a curated overview of relevant literature, academic forums, and competitions. Emphasis is laid on dissecting unimodal processing methods, including preprocessing, feature extraction, and tools across speech, text, images, and physiological signals. We further discuss the nuances of multimodal data fusion techniques, spotlighting early, late, model, and hybrid fusion strategies. Key findings indicate the essentiality of analyzing emotions across multiple modalities. Detailed discussions on emotion elicitation, expression, and representation models are presented. Moreover, we uncover challenges such as dataset creation, modality synchronization, model efficiency, limited data scenarios, cross-domain applicability, and the handling of missing modalities. Practical solutions and suggestions are provided to address these challenges. The realm of multimodal emotion analysis is vast, with numerous applications ranging from driver sentiment detection to medical evaluations. Our comprehensive review serves as a valuable resource for both scholars and industry professionals. It not only sheds light on the current state of research but also highlights potential directions for future innovations. The insights garnered from this paper are expected to pave the way for subsequent advancements in deep multimodal emotion analysis tailored for real-world deployments.