Facial Emotion Recognition Using Machine Learning

Face detection has been around for ages. Taking a step forward, human emotion displayed by face and felt by brain, captured in either video, electric signal (EEG) or image form can be approximated. Human emotion detection is the need of the hour so that modern artificial intelligent systems can emulate and gauge reactions from face. This can be helpful to make informed decisions be it regarding identification of intent, promotion of offers or security related threats. Recognizing emotions from images or video is a trivial task for human eye, but proves to be very challenging for machines and requires many image processing techniques for feature extraction. Several machine learning algorithms are suitable for this job. Any detection or recognition by machine learning requires training algorithm and then testing them on a suitable dataset. This paper explores a couple of machine learning algorithms as well as feature extraction techniques which would help us in accurate identification of the human emotion

An Actor-Centric Approach to Facial Animation Control by Neural Networks For Non-Player Characters in Video Games

Game developers increasingly consider the degree to which character animation emulates facial expressions found in cinema. Employing animators and actors to produce cinematic facial animation by mixing motion capture and hand-crafted animation is labor intensive and therefore expensive. Emotion corpora and neural network controllers have shown promise toward developing autonomous animation that does not rely on motion capture. Previous research and practice in disciplines of Computer Science, Psychology and the Performing Arts have provided frameworks on which to build a workflow toward creating an emotion AI system that can animate the facial mesh of a 3d non-player character deploying a combination of related theories and methods. However, past investigations and their resulting production methods largely ignore the emotion generation systems that have evolved in the performing arts for more than a century. We find very little research that embraces the intellectual process of trained actors as complex collaborators from which to understand and model the training of a neural network for character animation. This investigation demonstrates a workflow design that integrates knowledge from the performing arts and the affective branches of the social and biological sciences. Our workflow begins at the stage of developing and annotating a fictional scenario with actors, to producing a video emotion corpus, to designing training and validating a neural network, to analyzing the emotion data annotation of the corpus and neural network, and finally to determining resemblant behavior of its autonomous animation control of a 3d character facial mesh. The resulting workflow includes a method for the development of a neural network architecture whose initial efficacy as a facial emotion expression simulator has been tested and validated as substantially resemblant to the character behavior developed by a human actor

Affective Adaptation of Social Norms in Workplace Design

Open-plan offices are common in today's organisations. These types of workplaces require people to share a common space, where violation of (implicitly or explicitly stated) social norms can cause instances of incivility. If nothing is done to avoid these situations, bad feeling can lead to diminished productivity and cooperation, and, in the long-term, to more serious problems, such as conflict and aggression. A critical review of literature shows the effects of workplace incivility and the need for an internal reparation mechanism. Inspired by convergence of pervasive, adaptive and affective computing, we have designed and developed a self-regulatory platform for successful collective action, based on participatory adaptation and fair information practises, which we called MACS. MACS addresses the problem of incivility and aims at improving the Quality of Experience in shared workplaces. This thesis presents all studies that led to the development of MACS. Through the analysis of an online questionnaire we gathered information about incivility in shared workplaces, how people deal with those situations, and awareness about uncivil self-behaviours. We concluded the main issue while sharing a workplace is noise, and most people will try to change their own behaviour, rather than confronting the person being uncivil. MACS's avatar-based interface was developed with the purpose of heightening self-awareness and cueing the appropriate social norms, while providing a good User Experience (UX). Avatars created to people's image, rather than photos, were used, to keep MACS's tone light and relatively unintrusive, while still creating self-awareness. MACS's final version went through UX testing, where 6 people were filmed while performing tasks in MACS. The intended work-flow and user interfaces to support the smooth passage of the work-flow have been validated by the UX user testing. There is some preliminary evidence suggesting apology will elicit empathic responses in MACS. Finally, this thesis proposes guidelines for workplace design, which are founded on participatory creation and change of social norms, and ways to make sure they are enforced. In this sense, MACS can also be seen as a prototypical example of a socio-technical system being used as platform for successful collective action.Open Acces

Presence 2005: the eighth annual international workshop on presence, 21-23 September, 2005 University College London (Conference proceedings)

OVERVIEW (taken from the CALL FOR PAPERS) Academics and practitioners with an interest in the concept of (tele)presence are invited to submit their work for presentation at PRESENCE 2005 at University College London in London, England, September 21-23, 2005. The eighth in a series of highly successful international workshops, PRESENCE 2005 will provide an open discussion forum to share ideas regarding concepts and theories, measurement techniques, technology, and applications related to presence, the psychological state or subjective perception in which a person fails to accurately and completely acknowledge the role of technology in an experience, including the sense of 'being there' experienced by users of advanced media such as virtual reality. The concept of presence in virtual environments has been around for at least 15 years, and the earlier idea of telepresence at least since Minsky's seminal paper in 1980. Recently there has been a burst of funded research activity in this area for the first time with the European FET Presence Research initiative. What do we really know about presence and its determinants? How can presence be successfully delivered with today's technology? This conference invites papers that are based on empirical results from studies of presence and related issues and/or which contribute to the technology for the delivery of presence. Papers that make substantial advances in theoretical understanding of presence are also welcome. The interest is not solely in virtual environments but in mixed reality environments. Submissions will be reviewed more rigorously than in previous conferences. High quality papers are therefore sought which make substantial contributions to the field. Approximately 20 papers will be selected for two successive special issues for the journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. PRESENCE 2005 takes place in London and is hosted by University College London. The conference is organized by ISPR, the International Society for Presence Research and is supported by the European Commission's FET Presence Research Initiative through the Presencia and IST OMNIPRES projects and by University College London