Analysis of facial soft tissue changes with aging and their effects on facial morphology: A forensic perspective

Abstract

While working on the concept of employing human faces as a biometric tool for personal identification, it is common to come across certain hindrances such as illumination, pose variation and facial hair. But, dealing with the aging process of an individual has been generally overlooked until recently. This relatively untouched aspect may enable us more insight while tackling identification problems. As the face matures, it changes some of its most enduring properties (e.g., shape of the cranium) and acquires new attributes (e.g., wrinkles). These changes are the basis of information about the aging of the face. The human brain can analyze the face and estimate the approximate age of an individual, though this estimation is not accurate. The perception of age in the human brain is still a subject of research. This article takes the phenomenon of “aging of face” into consideration and following the same, this study has been carried out to analyze the kind of change occurring in the facial soft tissue thickness with progression of age and can be used along with other biological markers for personal identification or in developing automatic facial age estimation. The data can be used as an additional feature for corroboration or authentication in individualization. This preliminary study will help in forensic investigation although a database needs to be generated on other populations.