Collaborative Research: ITR: Automatic Analysis of Spontaneous Facial Expressions

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

Automatic Analysis of Spontaneous Facial Expressions Abstract The goal of this project is to develop computer systems for automatic analysis of spontaneous facial expressions, with a focus on the scientific study of the role of facial expressions in deception. A state-of-the-art digital video database of spontaneous facial expressions will be developed. This database will be hand-coded by behavioral scientist experts on facial expressions. This database will be used to develop an array of software tools for automatic analysis of facial expressions from video sequences. These tools will be developed by machine perception scientists in close collaboration with behavioral scientists and will be evaluated and refined for application to the scientific study of facial expressions. The machine perception community is in critical need for standard video databases to train and evaluate systems for automatic recognition of facial expressions. This project will provide one such database and thus could potentially accelerate research in this field. Automated recognition systems would have a tremendous impact on basic research by making facial expression measurement more accessible as a behavioral measure, providing data on the dynamics of facial behavior at resolutions that was previously unavailable. Such systems would also lay the foundations for computers that can understand this critical aspect of human communication.