A method of setting up a system for recognizing affective states of a subject, comprising the steps of: a. providing an environment configured to observe a training subject and place the training subject in a set of affective states, wherein the set of affective states comprises at least a first affective state and a second affective state, and the first affective state and the second affective state are different, b. providing a system (1, 2, 3, 4) for setting up an affective state recognition system, the system being a self-learning system and comprising a first input device for inputting physiological information about a training subject and a second input device for inputting or automatically recognizing the presence of an affective state of the training subject, c. putting the training subject into an affective state from the set of affective states, d. acquiring the physiological information about the training subject, e. determining the affective state, f. storing the acquired physiological information about the training subject with assignment of the determined affective state, g. inputting the sensed physiological information into the first input device, h. inputting the determined affective state to the second input device, and i. processing the input in the first input device and in the second input device to train the system for recognizing affective states, wherein the set of affective states comprises the affective state flow and the learning system comprises a neural network, a convolutional neural network, or a recurrent neural network. a. providing an environment configured to observe a training subject and place the training subject in a set of affective states, wherein the set of affective states comprises at least a first affective state and a second affective state, and the first affective state and the second affective state are different, b. providing a system (1, 2, 3, 4) for setting up an affective state recognition system, the system being a self-learning system and comprising a first input device for inputting physiological information about a training subject and a second input device for inputting or automatically recognizing the presence of an affective state of the training subject, a first input device for inputting physiological information about a training subject and a second input device for inputting or automatically recognizing the presence of an affective state of the training subject, c. putting the training subject into an affective state from the set of affective states, d. acquiring the physiological information about the training subject, e. determining the affective state, f. storing the acquired physiological information about the training subject with assignment of the determined affective state, g. inputting the sensed physiological information into the first input device, h. inputting the determined affective state to the second input device, and i. processing the input in the first input device and in the second input device to train the system for recognizing affective states, wherein the set of affective states comprises the affective state flow and the learning system comprises a neural network, a convolutional neural network, or a recurrent neural network.