The recognition of facial expressions with automatic detection of the reference face

Several researchers have attempted automatic recognition and tracking of facial expressions in video frames of neutral and expressive faces. But, it is very hard to detect a neutral face in practical applications because the distinction between facial movement and head movement is difficult to make. To solve this distinction problem, we tried to initialize the head position using the central point of each eye and the tip of the nose to extract facial movements. Based on the detected neutral faces, the changing processes of facial expressions can be recognized by means of detecting the reference face (neutral face) and an algorithm of the recognition for facial expressions. In short, we assume that this method of detecting neutral faces can be applied to the recognition of facial expressions.