Fast-FACS: A Computer-Assisted System to Increase Speed and Reliability of Manual FACS Coding

FACS (Facial Action Coding System) coding is the state of the art in manual measurement of facial actions. FACS coding, however, is labor intensive and difficult to standardize. A goal of automated FACS coding is to eliminate the need for manual coding and realize automatic recognition and analysis of facial actions. Success of this effort depends in part on access to reliably coded corpora; however, manual FACS coding remains expensive and slow. This paper proposes Fast-FACS, a computer vision aided system that improves speed and reliability of FACS coding. Three are the main novelties of the system: (1) to the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to predict onsets and offsets from peaks, (2) use Active Appearance Models for computer assisted FACS coding, (3) learn an optimal metric to predict onsets and offsets from peaks. The system was tested in the RU-FACS database, which consists of natural facial behavior during a two-person interview. Fast-FACS reduced manual coding time by nearly 50% and demonstrated strong concurrent validity with manual FACS coding.