An Integrated Deep Learning and Belief Rule-Based Expert System for Visual Sentiment Analysis under Uncertainty

Visual sentiment analysis has become more popular than textual ones in various domains for decision-making purposes. On account of this, we develop a visual sentiment analysis system, which can classify image expression. The system classifies images by taking into account six different expressions such as anger, joy, love, surprise, fear, and sadness. In our study, we propose an expert system by integrating a Deep Learning method with a Belief Rule Base (known as the BRB-DL approach) to assess an image's overall sentiment under uncertainty. This BRB-DL approach includes both the data-driven and knowledge-driven techniques to determine the overall sentiment. Our integrated expert system outperforms the state-of-the-art methods of visual sentiment analysis with promising results. The integrated system can classify images with 86% accuracy. The system can be beneficial to understand the emotional tendency and psychological state of an individual.