Explainable Infant Cry Recognition Using Reinforcement-Learned Feature Fusion and SHAP Interpretation

Explainable Infant Cry Recognition Using Reinforcement-Learned Feature Fusion and SHAP Interpretation | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Explainable Infant Cry Recognition Using Reinforcement-Learned Feature Fusion and SHAP Interpretation Kritika Singh, Minni Jain This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8139899/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Revision Version 1 posted 10 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Crying is one of the most fundamental ways an infant can communicate with the outside world. The cry contains vital information to determine the needs of the baby, whether due to hunger, pain, fatigue, or simply discomfort [1]. The accurate interpretation of these subtle acoustic patterns carried by cry signals is crucial for proper care and early diagnosis. This study presents an innovative approach to infant cry classification using explainable reinforcement learning and feature fusion methods. We dynamically assign different attention weights to already extracted features using a lightweight policy agent learned via the REINFORCE algorithm [2]. The model is trained and validated on a widely and popular literature dataset named Donate-a-Cry Corpus , which classifies cries into five categories namely; hunger, tiredness, belly pain, burping, and discomfort. In order to help reduce the extreme class imbalance present in the dataset, we use specific data augmentation methods. We also introduce a dynamic reward shaping mechanism into the reinforcement loop that improves the agent’s ability to focus on underrepresented classes. Once augmented and balanced, most salient acoustic features (MFCC, GFCC and prosodic features) are extracted and processed using a lightweight MLP(Multi-layer Perceptron) classifier for final classification. To validate our model, we apply k=3-fold cross-validation where we achieve an accuracy of 94.44%. Infant cry classification Reinforcement Learning REINFORCE Algorithm Dynamic Feature Weighting Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) SHAP Explainability Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Revision Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 19 Jan, 2026 Reviews received at journal 18 Jan, 2026 Reviews received at journal 20 Dec, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 08 Dec, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 05 Dec, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 03 Dec, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 03 Dec, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 19 Nov, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 19 Nov, 2025 First submitted to journal 17 Nov, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8139899","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":554999646,"identity":"bc704949-e273-4f48-9879-aa204ff45d2d","order_by":0,"name":"Kritika Singh","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Kritika","middleName":"","lastName":"Singh","suffix":""},{"id":554999647,"identity":"8f6f4cc9-efee-4b80-8395-d78f5084ae5c","order_by":1,"name":"Minni Jain","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAxUlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACZiBO4GHgYWBvMECIEKeF54BhA3Fa4EAiAaqFENBt5z324IGMnYy55OPtj3kY7OQZ2HkP4NVidpgv3SCBJ5nHcnZaYTMPQ7JhAzNfAgEtPGYSCTzMPAa3cwyBWpgTGIBsYrTU8xjcPAPSUk+0lsM8Bjd4QFoOE63lOI/BmbTCmXMMjhu2EdRy/oyZ5M+eanuD44c3fHhTUS3Pz38GvxYwYOyBsYCK2QirB4EfxCkbBaNgFIyCEQoAbko21GZ7SUMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Delhi Technological University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Minni","middleName":"","lastName":"Jain","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-11-18 02:08:14","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8139899/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8139899/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":97673271,"identity":"e57fc7f4-be7b-43ba-bd3b-f59bfcc3650d","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:39:46","extension":"json","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":4284,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"d9a9a079c79a4a82adde1eec41aa5544.json","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/7c86d18a677ed8a416c6b346.json"},{"id":97673434,"identity":"6a97a4ff-17dc-4b8b-9c34-934c204d4845","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:40:11","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":85574,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"31.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/fec9e3950bff1d4517e15849.png"},{"id":97673299,"identity":"20a09a86-3c28-40ef-bfad-aa4fa97dd32e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:39:49","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":99714,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"32.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/f10abbc59d955e7c146ca50e.png"},{"id":97568783,"identity":"57318e7f-b28c-403c-9804-58eccfc217ce","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":86020,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"33.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/66b4ae96f06b493e80ca295a.png"},{"id":97673178,"identity":"b1d51031-174b-4cc6-9530-9d33c9b5fad8","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:39:35","extension":"pdf","order_by":4,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":1939486,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"ExplainableInfantCryRecognitionUsingReinforcementLearnedFeatureFusionandSHAPInterpretation1final.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/bc3cb4a871b59483951713be.pdf"},{"id":97568778,"identity":"b0785f09-39c4-4d82-87f1-4ad80d68480c","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"md","order_by":5,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":4871,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"README.md","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/c80a07ac941fb77294b7e4ae.md"},{"id":97568784,"identity":"a33c62ba-7826-4450-8c21-d44935afaad3","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":6,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":109578,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"architecture.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/2b8ceb8fd3f562df16abefc8.png"},{"id":97568788,"identity":"95e7327a-af02-436d-aaf9-d916d6d5b696","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":7,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":283018,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"architecturefinal.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/1450ebbd7e66cbc2d98a9561.png"},{"id":97673255,"identity":"726b7214-c3d4-4279-b6c8-6caa3d1709c5","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:39:44","extension":"png","order_by":8,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":55412,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"flowchart.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/f03b6aca878db61e59cd1ca2.png"},{"id":97673415,"identity":"1f44fb72-4233-4dce-a7be-6280981a2912","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:40:05","extension":"png","order_by":9,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":34088,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"fold1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/4249cb61da2fb3912639bc84.png"},{"id":97568786,"identity":"9b9faea5-9fc3-4be6-91c6-4cbe2edb75c2","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":10,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":35788,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"fold2loss.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/07ab568ffae2f31d20df5ffc.png"},{"id":97568787,"identity":"1949b0f7-48a1-43a4-8d71-d738107694a7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":11,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":28890,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"fold2training.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/9d2f08522a8b101325e308e6.png"},{"id":97673112,"identity":"c7e50e16-073e-4ade-be97-b788332e9b51","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:39:28","extension":"png","order_by":12,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":59808,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"fold3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/097c9df8b3866012278ef37d.png"},{"id":97673418,"identity":"8953d9eb-b0cb-443e-ac05-4eefaa7429ec","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:40:06","extension":"png","order_by":13,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":19501,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"gfcc.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/6751055a77a3b7ebd2bd35aa.png"},{"id":97673391,"identity":"19b9269e-7bfe-468f-86e6-69c04ae6c0bd","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:40:02","extension":"png","order_by":14,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":48120,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"loss1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/08f53bb6a4b0c8c83dd1a185.png"},{"id":97568791,"identity":"25a9d46b-ca78-4dfc-82d8-7073a6f87a42","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":15,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":67280,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"loss3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/b4f84eb378c3ac5d43b25de4.png"},{"id":97672671,"identity":"c197107f-9818-4f8e-8c07-d7f5784af07f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:38:32","extension":"png","order_by":16,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":50734,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"mfcc.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/06c2f097960d526d4538e088.png"},{"id":97568802,"identity":"1e1025e2-e1ad-438b-9983-ff5bd5f51b83","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"sty","order_by":17,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":3479,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"pepadun.sty","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/6c4f9d7c83d6933052bddc4a.sty"},{"id":97568796,"identity":"f8a90727-593d-4168-8aac-eaaec381356f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":18,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":55940,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap11.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/f09d6b4a7dc3e6e04a024e42.png"},{"id":97671249,"identity":"88e049f1-f8a3-45b1-b3b9-d127d952002f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:32:18","extension":"png","order_by":19,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":54492,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap12.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/762504c587e06386cafbed1f.png"},{"id":97568801,"identity":"08596a70-8330-4f0a-b769-7bf6478665a7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":20,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":51522,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap13.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/0ae18b8ed2fd6725fc8350fe.png"},{"id":97568799,"identity":"be7be694-3156-46eb-b67d-4c67ddeca699","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":21,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":51625,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap14.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/cf60b95fb21d1466df0eeb75.png"},{"id":97568804,"identity":"33d1798b-f1f5-494d-be97-4d742a9f92a2","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":22,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":54236,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap15.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/59370c7e93ff91878484926a.png"},{"id":97568795,"identity":"ed9bc790-8069-4715-b7e2-6c3b578dc5b0","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":23,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":46547,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap21.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/afd8b81e0cc1ff8dfce49dc2.png"},{"id":97673192,"identity":"c41f4fed-12b2-459b-bc9e-0055a4f2877c","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:39:36","extension":"png","order_by":24,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":48891,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap22.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/1c00838567097a86dc7d2eb0.png"},{"id":97568800,"identity":"8f8bc8fb-e2bd-4135-96c1-4282bb09c5a9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":25,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":47470,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap23.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/9d1c8ed0bca824b45304e47e.png"},{"id":97568798,"identity":"3e9dc546-2a4d-4b03-9cdb-dec10d545795","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":26,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":43865,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap24.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/f5c9c01573c74667cab47e8c.png"},{"id":97672967,"identity":"75d08bf1-3a19-44e7-8dca-8617dd4a91ee","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:39:09","extension":"png","order_by":27,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":47845,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap25.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/ee681709d312faaeffb0aa0b.png"},{"id":97568808,"identity":"a42d6c71-5170-4e95-93cd-d7caa37a1ddc","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":28,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":98515,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap31.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/50c8d56095b681cc9b95e116.png"},{"id":97568809,"identity":"2f51119d-efee-42ff-b5f9-baf0c205d6f5","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":29,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":104430,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap32.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/cf9d18430672546eca4598d3.png"},{"id":97568810,"identity":"ce99992e-b7db-4288-8a6d-9f2b6fa8985d","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":30,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":100303,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap33.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/2b54a48f74e0b5d2655b8324.png"},{"id":97568806,"identity":"be6ab1d5-c203-4935-a5a9-15a85862fa15","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":31,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":96432,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap34.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/0fb40613c068d8f9ea27c77b.png"},{"id":97568805,"identity":"056713aa-3b31-4b5c-9b92-21280d34d214","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":32,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":103373,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"shap35.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/40d8bf0be8a5b09ef39aef3b.png"},{"id":97568803,"identity":"ba4de836-b5a4-46cf-812b-3d24b9c4e443","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-06 03:01:42","extension":"png","order_by":33,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":18033,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"unilalogo.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/26e3d98671da23ba87031396.png"},{"id":97673235,"identity":"c4e07fa7-713a-4136-9d58-2799609c3752","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:39:42","extension":"xml","order_by":34,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":132827,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"d9a9a079c79a4a82adde1eec41aa55441structuring.xml","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1/689146828221067fd93a7ba7.xml"},{"id":97678567,"identity":"73002baf-3d6b-4a75-b264-6a98f900f278","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-08 09:55:41","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":889824,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"ExplainableInfantCryRecognitionUsingReinforcementLearnedFeatureFusionandSHAPInterpretation1final.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8139899/v1_covered_90811e04-71c0-4861-b94b-be376c520780.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Explainable Infant Cry Recognition Using Reinforcement-Learned Feature Fusion and SHAP Interpretation","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"signal-image-and-video-processing","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"sivp","sideBox":"Learn more about [Signal, Image and Video Processing](http://link.springer.com/journal/11760)","snPcode":"11760","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/11760/3","title":"Signal, Image and Video Processing","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":" Infant cry classification, Reinforcement Learning, REINFORCE Algorithm, Dynamic Feature Weighting, Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), SHAP Explainability","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8139899/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8139899/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Crying is one of the most fundamental ways an infant can communicate with the outside world. The cry contains vital information to determine the needs of the baby, whether due to hunger, pain, fatigue, or simply discomfort [1]. The accurate interpretation of these subtle acoustic patterns carried by cry signals is crucial for proper care and early diagnosis. This study presents an innovative approach to infant cry classification using explainable reinforcement learning and feature fusion methods. We dynamically assign different attention weights to already extracted features using a lightweight policy agent learned via the REINFORCE algorithm [2]. The model is trained and validated on a widely and popular literature dataset named Donate-a-Cry Corpus , which classifies cries into five categories namely; hunger, tiredness, belly pain, burping, and discomfort. In order to help reduce the extreme class imbalance present in the dataset, we use specific data augmentation methods. We also introduce a dynamic reward shaping mechanism into the reinforcement loop that improves the agent’s ability to focus on underrepresented classes. Once augmented and balanced, most salient acoustic features (MFCC, GFCC and prosodic features) are extracted and processed using a lightweight MLP(Multi-layer Perceptron) classifier for final classification. To validate our model, we apply k=3-fold cross-validation where we achieve an accuracy of 94.44%.","manuscriptTitle":"Explainable Infant Cry Recognition Using Reinforcement-Learned Feature Fusion and SHAP Interpretation","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-12-06 03:01:37","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8139899/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2026-01-20T01:49:56+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-01-18T17:53:04+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2025-12-20T10:33:55+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"77272680674282623584586868458054686656","date":"2025-12-09T04:21:04+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"256307029342217973447049609563045228155","date":"2025-12-05T09:34:24+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"235883192130517948569396423066521084188","date":"2025-12-04T03:42:19+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2025-12-03T20:45:40+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2025-11-19T10:00:28+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2025-11-19T09:57:12+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Signal, Image and Video Processing","date":"2025-11-18T02:05:18+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"signal-image-and-video-processing","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"sivp","sideBox":"Learn more about [Signal, Image and Video Processing](http://link.springer.com/journal/11760)","snPcode":"11760","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/11760/3","title":"Signal, Image and Video Processing","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"fb716bd0-d3cf-46a9-af3d-91bb48a1b8c4","owner":[],"postedDate":"December 6th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"in-revision","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-05-15T11:55:10+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-12-06 03:01:37","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8139899","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8139899","identity":"rs-8139899","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}