The components of conversational facial expressions

Douglas W. Cunningham, Mario Kleiner, Heirich H. Bülthoff, Christian Wallraven

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

    29 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Conversing with others is one of the most central of human behaviours. In any conversation, humans use facial motion to help modify what is said, to control the flow of a dialog, or to convey complex intentions without saying a word. Here, we employ a custom, image-based, stereo motion-tracking algorithm to track and selectively "freeze" portions of an actor or actress's face in video recordings in order to determine the necessary and sufficient facial motions for nine conversational expressions. The results show that most expressions rely primarily on a single facial area to convey meaning, with different expressions using different facial areas. The results also show that the combination of rigid head, eye, eyebrow, and mouth motion is sufficient to produce versions of these expressions that are as easy to recognize as the original recordings. Finally, the results show that the manipulation technique introduced few perceptible artifacts into the altered video sequences. The use of advanced computer graphics techniques provided a means to systematically examine real facial expressions. This provides not only fundamental insights into human perception and cognition, but also yields the basis for a systematic description of what needs to be animated in order to produce realistic, recognizable facial expressions.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationProceedings - 1st Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization, APGV 2004
    PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
    Pages143-149
    Number of pages7
    ISBN (Print)1581139144, 9781581139143
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2004
    EventProceedings - 1st Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization, APGV 2004 - Los Angeles, CA, United States
    Duration: 2004 Aug 72004 Aug 8

    Publication series

    NameProceedings - 1st Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization, APGV 2004

    Other

    OtherProceedings - 1st Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization, APGV 2004
    Country/TerritoryUnited States
    CityLos Angeles, CA
    Period04/8/704/8/8

    Keywords

    • Animation
    • Applied perception
    • Computer graphics
    • Facial expressions

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Engineering

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