Berlin Database of Emotional Speech

General information

As a part of the DFG funded research project SE462/3-1 in 1997 and 1999 we recorded a database of emotional utterances spoken by actors. The recordings took place in the anechoic chamber of the Technical University Berlin, department of Technical Acoustics. Director of the project was Prof. Dr. W. Sendlmeier, Technical University of Berlin, Institute of Speech and Communication, department of communication science. Members of the project were mainly Felix Burkhardt, Miriam Kienast, Astrid Paeschke and Benjamin Weiss.

More information about the Berlin Emotional Speech Database and the analysis results you will find in the several publications mentioned here.

For details about the usage of this database read section Emo-DB.

Elements of the navigation frame

• Home
• Emo-DB
• Download
• Documentation
• Results of Analyses and Perception Test
• Contact

Home

With a click on this link you come back to the very beginning. At this site you can choose between normal (1024x768 pixel) and high resolution (1280x1024 pixel) in order to get the best viewing results for your screen size.

Emo-DB

This section explains how to use this website to see what is in the database and how to configure the layout of the presentation of the various kinds of information included in this speech database.
In short there are the sound files itself, the label files (syllable label files and phone label files), information about the results of different perception tests (including the recognition of emotions, the evaluation of naturalness, the syllable stress and the strength of the displayed emotions) as well as some results of the measurements of fundamental frequency, energy, loudness, duration, stress and rhythm.

After a click on Emo-DB (in the navigation frame on top) you will see a new frame here. There you have the possibility to choose speaker, text and emotion. The database will show you all the utterances available fulfilling your request. Since the database contains more than 500 utterances be careful not to choose all speakers, all texts and all emotions if you do not want to wait too long for a response.
The result of your request will be shown after clicking on the button "...show!".

You will see a table containing the following information:

• 1. column: a number (continuous)
• 2.-6. column: the results from the perception tests:
  • percentage of correct recognition of emotion
  • percentage of people who thought that the displayed emotion is performed reasonably convincing
  • the emotion recognition of every single participant in the perception experiment (especially interesting if you want to know with which other emotions the utterance has been confused)
  • emotional strength (1= very weak emotion, 7= very strong emotion)
  • standard deviation of the afore mentioned value
• 7. column: a pho-File containing the original F0- and duration values for synthesizing this specific file with MBROLA
• 8. column: the letters P - L - A - Y: you can click on each of them to hear ...
  • (P) the original sound
  • (L) the MBROLA resynthesized version (with the original F₀ contour)
  • (A) a version with stylized F₀ contour resynthesized with MBROLA according to the stylization algorithm by D'Alessandro & Mertens
  • (Y) another resynthesized audio file with a stylized F₀ contour according to an algorithm written by Sascha Fagel
• 9. column: a button to click to see the graphic of the utterance (according to the display configuration shown on the right side)

In the right frame you can configure the display of the chosen utterance according to your needs.

Options for configuring the graphic display:

• Scaling:
  • real = time scale is the same for all utterances
  • perc = timeline is scaled so that the whole utterance fits in the window size
     
    
• Label:
  • none = no label files are shown
  • |||| = only borders between syllables are shown
  • |a|b|c| = borders and syllable labels are shown
  • a,b,c = borders are only shown between syllable labels, not over the complete window height (try and look - you will see)
     
    
• Stress:
  • you can only choose if you want to see it or not
  • the yellow bars indicate the stress level of each syllable (average value from the perception test);
    units are from 0 to 3 (according to unstressed, normal stressed, strongly stressed and emphatically stressed)
  • thin dark-red lines constitute the reticule with lines at the values 1 (lowest one), 2 (middle one) and 3 (highest one)
     
    
• F₀:
  • normal = F₀ values are shown as measured (no values at voiceless parts)
  • interpolated = F₀ values are shown with intermediate values (calculated by linear interpolation)
• Stylization:
  • none = no F₀ stylization will be displayed
  • spline = F₀ stylization with spline functions will be displayed (programmed by Sascha Fagel)
  • linear = linear F₀ stylization will be displayed (stylization method developed by D'Alessandro & Mertens)
• gliss. threshold:
  • differential glissando threshold is a parameter used for the stylization algorithm by D'Alessandro & Mertens), a higher value results in less chunks, a lower value produces a more detailed stylization and therefore more chunks
• diff. gliss. threshold:
  • differential glissando threshold (another parameter used for the stylization algorithm by D'Alessandro & Mertens), lower value = more chunks
     
    
• Trend:
  • linear global trend (=regression line) and the slope of it will be displayed
     
    
• Histograms:
  • F₀ histogram of the utterance will be displayed
    if you are especially interested in the histograms you can get a better view (with units marked) under "results - histograms"
     
    
• Energy:
  • a dark blue curve representing the measured energy values is shown
     
    
• Loudness:
  • a blue curve representing the calculated loudness values is shown, the algorithm used for loudness calculation has been developed by Zwicker (see Zwicker, Fastl (1990): "Psychoacoustics")
     
    
• Rhythm Events:
  • if you choose one of the letters A-H red dots (mostly on maxima of the loudness curve) representing the calculated rhythm events are shown
    
  • the algorithm used for calculation of the rhythm events is also based on a method developed by Zwicker (see the aformentioned book, chapter "Rhythm", page 245f.)
  • letters A to H represent different reference values for the loudness maximum which is needed for calculation
    A - reference value equals the loudness maximum of every single utterance
    B - reference value equals the loudness maximum of a specific text and a specific emotion (all speakers)
    C - reference value equals the loudness maximum of the respective text (all speaker, all emotions)
    D - reference value equals the loudness maximum of the respective emotion (all texts, all speakers)
    E - reference value equals the loudness maximum of all utterances (max. of whole database)
    F - reference value equals the loudness maximum of a specific text and a specific speaker (all emotions)
    G - reference value equals the loudness maximum of the respective speaker (all texts, all emotions)
    H - reference value equals the loudness maximum of a specific emotion and a specific speaker (all texts)
    
     
    

Download

Documentation

Results of Analyses and Perception Test

Contact

Additional Information

• Positions 1-2: number of speaker
• Positions 3-5: code for text
• Position 6: emotion (sorry, letter stands for german emotion word)
• Position 7: if there are more than two versions these are numbered a, b, c ....

Information about the speakers

• 03 - male, 31 years old
• 08 - female, 34 years
• 09 - female, 21 years
• 10 - male, 32 years
• 11 - male, 26 years
• 12 - male, 30 years
• 13 - female, 32 years
• 14 - female, 35 years
• 15 - male, 25 years
• 16 - female, 31 years