Deep neural network-based emotion recognition using facial landmark features and particle swarm optimization

Abstract

Relating specifically to human–computer interaction (HCI), computer vision research has placed a substantial emphasis on intelligent emotion recognition in recent years. The primary emphasis lies in investigating speech aspects and bodily motions, while the knowledge of recognizing emotions from facial expressions remains relatively unexplored. Automated facial emotion detection allows a machine to assess and understand a person's emotional state, allowing the system to predict intent by analyzing facial expressions. Therefore, this research provides a novel parameter selection strategy using swarm intelligence and a fitness function for intelligent recognition of micro emotions. This paper presents a novel method based on geometric visual representation obtained from facial landmark points. We employ the Deep Neural Networks (DNN) model to analyze the input features from the normalized angle and distance values derived from these landmarks. The results of the experiments show that Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) worked very well by using only a few carefully chosen features. The method achieved a recognition success rate of 98.76% on the MUG dataset and 97.79% on the GEMEP datasets.

KEYWORDS:

• Deep neural network
• particle swarm optimization
• facial motion recognition
• geometrical features

Acknowledgement

The authors of the article would like to express their heartfelt gratitude to the editors and each anonymous reviewer for their thoughtful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data and materials

The information supporting the current outcomes of the research can be accessed at https://mug.ee.auth.gr/datasets/ and https://www.unige.ch/cisa/gemep. Data used under license for this work are restricted.