Self-supervised Learning for Speech Emotion Recognition Task Using Audio-visual Features and Distil Hubert Model on BAVED and RAVDESS Databases

Existing pre-trained models like Distil HuBERT excel at uncovering hidden patterns and facilitating accurate recognition across diverse data types, such as audio and visual information. We harnessed this capability to develop a deep learning model that utilizes Distil HuBERT for jointly learning these combined features in speech emotion recognition (SER). Our experiments highlight its distinct advantages: it significantly outperforms Wav2vec 2.0 in both offline and real-time accuracy on RAVDESS and BAVED datasets. Although slightly trailing HuBERT’s offline accuracy, Distil HuBERT shines with comparable performance at a fraction of the model size, making it an ideal choice for resource-constrained environments like mobile devices. This smaller size does come with a slight trade-off: Distil HuBERT achieved notable accuracy in offline evaluation, with 96.33% on the BAVED database and 87.01% on the RAVDESS database. In real-time evaluation, the accuracy decreased to 79.3% on the BAVED database and 77.87% on the RAVDESS database. This decrease is likely a result of the challenges associated with real-time processing, including latency and noise, but still demonstrates strong performance in practical scenarios. Therefore, Distil HuBERT emerges as a compelling choice for SER, especially when prioritizing accuracy over real-time processing. Its compact size further enhances its potential for resource-limited settings, making it a versatile tool for a wide range of applications.