Lattice computing extension of the FAM neural classifier for human facial expression recognition

This paper proposes a fundamentally novel extension, namely, flrFAM, of the fuzzy ARTMAP (FAM) neural classifier for incremental real-time learning and generalization based on fuzzy lattice reasoning techniques. FAM is enhanced first by a parameter optimization training (sub)phase, and then by a capacity to process partially ordered (non)numeric data including information granules. The interest here focuses on intervals' numbers (INs) data, where an IN represents a distribution of data samples. We describe the proposed flrFAM classifier as a fuzzy neural network that can induce descriptive as well as flexible (i.e., tunable) decision-making knowledge (rules) from the data. We demonstrate the capacity of the flrFAM classifier for human facial expression recognition on benchmark datasets. The novel feature extraction as well as knowledge-representation is based on orthogonal moments. The reported experimental results compare well with the results by alternative classifiers from the literature. The far-reaching potential of fuzzy lattice reasoning in human-machine interaction applications is discussed.