Customizable Avatars with Dynamic Facial Action Coded Expressions (CADyFACE) for Improved User Engagement
<|reference_start|>Customizable Avatars with Dynamic Facial Action Coded Expressions (CADyFACE) for Improved User Engagement: Customizable 3D avatar-based facial expression stimuli may improve user engagement in behavioral biomarker discovery and therapeutic intervention for autism, Alzheimer's disease, facial palsy, and more. However, there is a lack of customizable avatar-based stimuli with Facial Action Coding System (FACS) action unit (AU) labels. Therefore, this study focuses on (1) FACS-labeled, customizable avatar-based expression stimuli for maintaining subjects' engagement, (2) learning-based measurements that quantify subjects' facial responses to such stimuli, and (3) validation of constructs represented by stimulus-measurement pairs. We propose Customizable Avatars with Dynamic Facial Action Coded Expressions (CADyFACE) labeled with AUs by a certified FACS expert. To measure subjects' AUs in response to CADyFACE, we propose a novel Beta-guided Correlation and Multi-task Expression learning neural network (BeCoME-Net) for multi-label AU detection. The beta-guided correlation loss encourages feature correlation with AUs while discouraging correlation with subject identities for improved generalization. We train BeCoME-Net for unilateral and bilateral AU detection and compare with state-of-the-art approaches. To assess construct validity of CADyFACE and BeCoME-Net, twenty healthy adult volunteers complete expression recognition and mimicry tasks in an online feasibility study while webcam-based eye-tracking and video are collected. We test validity of multiple constructs, including face preference during recognition and AUs during mimicry.<|reference_end|>
@article{witherow2024customizable,
    title={Customizable Avatars with Dynamic Facial Action Coded Expressions
  (CADyFACE) for Improved User Engagement},
    author={Megan A. Witherow, Crystal Butler, Winston J. Shields, Furkan Ilgin,
  Norou Diawara, Janice Keener, John W. Harrington, and Khan M. Iftekharuddin},
    journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.07314},
    year={2024},
    archivePrefix={arXiv},
    eprint={2403.07314},
    primaryClass={cs.HC cs.CV cs.LG}
}