Fully automated recognition of spontaneous facial expressions in videos using random forest classifiers

Abstract

This paper discusses the design and implementation of a fully automated comprehensive facial expression detection and classification framework. It uses a proprietary face detector (PittPatt) and a novel classifier consisting of a set of Random Forests paired with support vector machine labellers . The system performs at real-time rates under imaging conditions, with no intermediate human intervention. The acted still-image Binghamton University 3D Facial Expression database was used for training purposes, while a number of spontaneous expression-labelled video databases were used for testing. Quantitative evidence for qualitative and intuitive facial expression recognition constitutes the main theoretical contribution to the field.