Inferring facial expressions from videos: Tool and application

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel approach for facial expression analysis and recognition. The main contributions of the paper are as follows. First, we propose a temporal recognition scheme that classifies a given image in an unseen video into one of the universal facial expression categories using an analysis–synthesis scheme. The proposed approach relies on tracked facial actions provided by a real-time face tracker. Second, we propose an efficient recognition scheme based on the detection of keyframes in videos. Third, we use the proposed method for extending the human–machine interaction functionality of the AIBO robot. More precisely, the robot is displaying an emotional state in response to the user's recognized facial expression. Experiments using unseen videos demonstrated the effectiveness of the developed methods.