Vision-based Active Speaker Detection in Multiparty Interactions

This paper presents a supervised learning method for automatic visual detection of the active speaker in multiparty interactions. The presented detectors are built using a multimodal multiparty interaction dataset previously recorded with the purpose to explore patterns in the focus of visual attention of humans. Three different conditions are included: two humans involved in taskbased interaction with a robot; the same two humans involved in task-based interaction where the robot is replaced by a third human, and a free three-party human interaction. The paper also presents an evaluation of the active speaker detection method in a speaker dependent experiment showing that the method achieves good accuracy rates in a fairly unconstrained scenario using only image data as input. The main goal of the presented method is to provide real-time detection of the active speaker within a broader framework implemented on a robot and used to generate natural focus of visual attention behavior during multiparty human-robot interactions.