Facial expression recognition from near-infrared video sequences

Facial expressions can be thought as specific dynamic textures where local appearance and motion information need to be taken into account. We utilize local spatiotemporal operators to describe facial expressions. All current facial expression recognition databases are captured in visible light spectrum. Visual light usually changes with locations, and can also vary with time, which can cause significant variations in image appearance and texture. In this paper, we present a novel research on a dynamic facial expression recognition from near-infrared (NIR) video sequences. NIR imaging is robust with respect to illumination changes. Experiments on a new NIR database show promising and robust results against illumination variations.