The investigation of traditional models and machine learning models in dynamic facial expression recognition

Abstract

In everyday life, dynamic facial expressions are merely continuous human responses to external events. However, in human-computer interaction, rapidly recognizing changes in facial expressions from video streams is a relatively complex process. This complexity renders Dynamic Facial Expression Recognition (DFER) a critical research task in the domains of computer vision and image processing. This paper analyses the correlations and contrasts between static and dynamic facial expression research, highlighting key issues in the study of dynamic facial expressions, such as dynamic feature extraction and frame extraction. After that, it enumerates significant algorithms in both traditional models and deep learning models, providing an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of these two major approaches. At the same time, it investigates the reasons behind the transition of research models for DFER from traditional methods to deep learning approaches. The paper focuses on two notable models from each approach: Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG) for processing raw images, Support Vector Machine (SVM) for data classification in traditional models. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for spatial feature extraction and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) for temporal feature extraction in deep learning models. These models are discussed in detail concerning their strengths and weaknesses, operational processes, and performance outcomes. In the concluding section, the author summarizes the main factors influencing research in this field and the current challenges encountered. By focusing on future research directions, the paper also presents a review of recent methodologies and offers insightful research directions for further investigation.