<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To determine a characteristic of a face such as a sexuality, an age, a race, a mental state, an expression, and a posture, from an image of the face. <P>SOLUTION: An input image 110 is divided into a set 125 of input patches (120). Each patch is compared with a set 140 of prototype patches (130). The result of the comparison is a set of the matched prototype patches. The characteristic of the face is determined (400), based on a characteristic of the set of the matched prototype patches. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT 
METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING CHARACTERISTIC OF FACE WITHIN IMAGE