Classifying pretended and evoked facial expressions of positive and negative affective states using infrared measurement of skin temperature

Earlier researchers were able to extract the transient facial thermal features from thermal infrared images (TIRIs) to make binary distinctions between the expressions of affective states. However, effective human-computer interaction would require machines to distinguish between the subtle facial e...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Khan, Masood Mehmood, Ward, R. D., Ingleby, M.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) 2009
Online Access:http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1462055.1462061
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/44186
_version_ 1848756925027581952
author Khan, Masood Mehmood
Ward, R. D.
Ingleby, M.
author_facet Khan, Masood Mehmood
Ward, R. D.
Ingleby, M.
author_sort Khan, Masood Mehmood
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Earlier researchers were able to extract the transient facial thermal features from thermal infrared images (TIRIs) to make binary distinctions between the expressions of affective states. However, effective human-computer interaction would require machines to distinguish between the subtle facial expressions of affective states. This work, for the first time, attempts to use the transient facial thermal features for recognizing a much wider range of facial expressions. A database of 324 time-sequential, visible-spectrum, and thermal facial images was developed representing different facial expressions from 23 participants in different situations. A novel facial thermal feature extraction, selection, and classification approach was developed and invoked on various Gaussian mixture models constructed using: neutral and pretended happy and sad faces, faces with multiple positive and negative facial expressions, faces with neutral and six (pretended) basic facial expressions, and faces with evoked happiness, sadness, disgust, and anger. This work demonstrates that (1) infrared imaging can be used to observe the affective-state-specific facial thermal variations, (2) pixel-grey level analysis of TIRIs can help localise significant facial thermal feature points along the major facial muscles, and (3) cluster-analytic classification of transient thermal features can help distinguish between the facial expressions of affective states in an optimized eigenspace of input thermal feature vectors. The observed classification results exhibited influence of a Gaussian mixture model's structure on classifier-performance. The work also unveiled some pertinent aspects of future research on the use of facial thermal features in automated facial expression classification and affect recognition.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T09:19:56Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-44186
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:19:56Z
publishDate 2009
publisher Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-441862019-02-19T05:35:12Z Classifying pretended and evoked facial expressions of positive and negative affective states using infrared measurement of skin temperature Khan, Masood Mehmood Ward, R. D. Ingleby, M. Earlier researchers were able to extract the transient facial thermal features from thermal infrared images (TIRIs) to make binary distinctions between the expressions of affective states. However, effective human-computer interaction would require machines to distinguish between the subtle facial expressions of affective states. This work, for the first time, attempts to use the transient facial thermal features for recognizing a much wider range of facial expressions. A database of 324 time-sequential, visible-spectrum, and thermal facial images was developed representing different facial expressions from 23 participants in different situations. A novel facial thermal feature extraction, selection, and classification approach was developed and invoked on various Gaussian mixture models constructed using: neutral and pretended happy and sad faces, faces with multiple positive and negative facial expressions, faces with neutral and six (pretended) basic facial expressions, and faces with evoked happiness, sadness, disgust, and anger. This work demonstrates that (1) infrared imaging can be used to observe the affective-state-specific facial thermal variations, (2) pixel-grey level analysis of TIRIs can help localise significant facial thermal feature points along the major facial muscles, and (3) cluster-analytic classification of transient thermal features can help distinguish between the facial expressions of affective states in an optimized eigenspace of input thermal feature vectors. The observed classification results exhibited influence of a Gaussian mixture model's structure on classifier-performance. The work also unveiled some pertinent aspects of future research on the use of facial thermal features in automated facial expression classification and affect recognition. 2009 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/44186 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1462055.1462061 Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) fulltext
spellingShingle Khan, Masood Mehmood
Ward, R. D.
Ingleby, M.
Classifying pretended and evoked facial expressions of positive and negative affective states using infrared measurement of skin temperature
title Classifying pretended and evoked facial expressions of positive and negative affective states using infrared measurement of skin temperature
title_full Classifying pretended and evoked facial expressions of positive and negative affective states using infrared measurement of skin temperature
title_fullStr Classifying pretended and evoked facial expressions of positive and negative affective states using infrared measurement of skin temperature
title_full_unstemmed Classifying pretended and evoked facial expressions of positive and negative affective states using infrared measurement of skin temperature
title_short Classifying pretended and evoked facial expressions of positive and negative affective states using infrared measurement of skin temperature
title_sort classifying pretended and evoked facial expressions of positive and negative affective states using infrared measurement of skin temperature
url http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1462055.1462061
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/44186