Abstract: Most applications dealing with problems involving the face require a robust estimation of the facial salient points. Nevertheless, this estimation is not usually an automated preprocessing step in applications dealing with facial expression recognition. In this paper we present a simple method to detect facial salient points in the face. It is based on a prior Point Distribution Model and a robust object descriptor. The model learns the distribution of the points from the training data, as well as the amount of variation in location each point exhibits. Using this model, we reduce the search areas to look for each point. In addition, we also exploit the global consistency of the points constellation, increasing the detection accuracy. The method was tested on two separate data sets and the results, in some cases, outperform the state of the art.

Abstract: The amount of multimodal devices that surround us is growing everyday. In this context, human interaction and communication have become a focus of attention and a hot topic of research. A crucial element in human relations is the evaluation of individuals with respect to facial traits, what is called a first impression. Studies based on appearance have suggested that personality can be expressed by appearance and the observer may use such information to form judgments. In the context of rapid facial evaluation, certain personality traits seem to have a more pronounced effect on the relations and perceptions inside groups. The perception of dominance has been shown to be an active part of social roles at different stages of life, and even play a part in mate selection. The aim of this paper is to study to what extent this information is learnable from the point of view of computer science. Specifically we intend to determine if judgments of dominance can be learned by machine learning techniques. We implement two different descriptors in order to assess this. The first is the histogram of oriented gradients (HOG), and the second is a probabilistic appearance descriptor based on the frequencies of grouped binary tests. State of the art classification rules validate the performance of both descriptors, with respect to the prediction task. Experimental results show that machine learning techniques can predict judgments of dominance rather accurately (accuracies up to 90%) and that the HOG descriptor may characterize appropriately the information necessary for such task.

Abstract: JCR Impact Factor 2010: 4.411
Evaluating other individuals with respect to personality characteristics plays a crucial role in human relations and it is the focus of attention for research in diverse fields such as psychology and interactive computer systems. In psychology, face perception has been recognized as a key component of this evaluation system. Multiple studies suggest that observers use face information to infer personality characteristics. Interactive computer systems are trying to take advantage of these findings and apply them to increase the natural aspect of interaction and to improve the performance of interactive computer systems. Here, we experimentally test whether the automatic prediction of facial trait judgments (e.g. dominance) can be made by using the full appearance information of the face and whether a reduced representation of its structure is sufficient. We evaluate two separate approaches: a holistic representation model using the facial appearance information and a structural model constructed from the relations among facial salient points. State of the art machine learning methods are applied to a) derive a facial trait judgment model from training data and b) predict a facial trait value for any face. Furthermore, we address the issue of whether there are specific structural relations among facial points that predict perception of facial traits. Experimental results over a set of labeled data (9 different trait evaluations) and classification rules (4 rules) suggest that a) prediction of perception of facial traits is learnable by both holistic and structural approaches; b) the most reliable prediction of facial trait judgments is obtained by certain type of holistic descriptions of the face appearance; and c) for some traits such as attractiveness and extroversion, there are relationships between specific structural features and social perceptions

Abstract: Computing advances and increased smartphone use gives technology system designers greater flexibility in exploiting computer vision to support visually impaired users. Understanding these users' needs will certainly provide insight for the development of improved usability of computing devices.

Abstract: Non-linear dimensionality reduction techniques are affected by two critical aspects: (i) the design of the adjacency graphs, and (ii) the embedding of new test data-the out-of-sample problem. For the first aspect, the proposed solutions, in general, were heuristically driven. For the second aspect, the difficulty resides in finding an accurate mapping that transfers unseen data samples into an existing manifold. Past works addressing these two aspects were heavily parametric in the sense that the optimal performance is only achieved for a suitable parameter choice that should be known in advance. In this paper, we demonstrate that the sparse representation theory not only serves for automatic graph construction as shown in recent works, but also represents an accurate alternative for out-of-sample embedding. Considering for a case study the Laplacian Eigenmaps, we applied our method to the face recognition problem. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed out-of-sample embedding, experiments are conducted using the K-nearest neighbor (KNN) and Kernel Support Vector Machines (KSVM) classifiers on six public face datasets. The experimental results show that the proposed model is able to achieve high categorization effectiveness as well as high consistency with non-linear embeddings/manifolds obtained in batch modes.

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a precise synthetic ground truth dataset to study the problem of detection of the shadows cast by static objects in outdoor environments during extended periods of time (days). For our dataset, we have created a virtual scenario using a rendering software. To increase the realism of the simulated environment, we have defined the scenario in a precise geographical location. In our dataset the sun is by far the main illumination source. The sun position during the simulation time takes into consideration factors related to the geographical location, such as the latitude, longitude, elevation above sea level, and precise image capturing day and time. In our simulation the camera remains fixed. The dataset consists of seven days of simulation, from 10:00am to 5:00pm. Images are captured every 10 seconds. The shadows' ground truth is automatically computed by the rendering software.