Journal Article

Emotion analysis in children through facial emissivity of infrared thermal imaging

Valadão, Carlos, Goulart, Christiane, Caldeira, Eliete, Delisle-Rodriguez, Denis, Bastos, Teodiano

2019

Overview

Physiological signals may be used as objective markers to identify emotions, which play relevant roles in social and daily life. To measure these signals, the use of contact-free techniques, such as Infrared Thermal Imaging (IRTI), is indispensable to individuals who have sensory sensitivity. The goal of this study is to propose an experimental design to analyze five emotions (disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise) from facial thermal images of typically developing (TD) children aged 7-11 years using emissivity variation, as recorded by IRTI. For the emotion analysis, a dataset considered emotional dimensions (valence and arousal), facial bilateral sides and emotion classification accuracy. The results evidence the efficiency of the experimental design with interesting findings, such as the correlation between the valence and the thermal decrement in nose; disgust and happiness as potent triggers of facial emissivity variations; and significant emissivity variations in nose, cheeks and periorbital regions associated with different emotions. Moreover, facial thermal asymmetry was revealed with a distinct thermal tendency in the cheeks, and classification accuracy reached a mean value greater than 85%. From the results, the emissivity variations were an efficient marker to analyze emotions in facial thermal images, and IRTI was confirmed to be an outstanding technique to study emotions. This study contributes a robust dataset to analyze the emotions of 7-11-year-old TD children, an age range for which there is a gap in the literature.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Adaptive technology / Analysis / Arousal / Asymmetry / Behavior Observation Techniques - instrumentation / Behavior Observation Techniques - methods / Biology and Life Sciences / Biotechnology / Body Temperature - physiology / Cheek / Child / Child Behavior - physiology / Childhood emotions / Children / Classification / Computer engineering / Cooperation / Datasets as Topic / Design of experiments / Discriminant analysis / Electrical engineering / Emissivity / Emotions / Emotions - physiology / Experimental design / Face - diagnostic imaging / Face - physiology / Facial expression / Fear & phobias / Feasibility Studies / Female / Handicapped assistance devices / Humans / Infrared analysis / Infrared imaging / Infrared Rays / Male / Medicine and Health Sciences / Models, Psychological / Nose / People and Places / Physiological aspects / Physiology / Psychological aspects / Reaction Time / Signal processing / Skin / Social aspects / Social Sciences / Thermal imaging / Thermography / Thermography - instrumentation / Thermography - methods / Variation