Automated Facial Expression Recognition Framework Using Deep Learning

Facial expression is one of the most significant elements which can tell us about the mental state of any person. A human can convey approximately 55% of information nonverbally and the remaining almost 45% through verbal communication. Automatic facial expression recognition is presently one of the most difficult tasks in the computer science field. Applications of facial expression recognition (FER) are not just limited to understanding human behavior and monitoring person's mood and the mental state of humans. It is also penetrating into other fields such as criminology, holographic, smart healthcare systems, security systems, education, robotics, entertainment, and stress detection. Currently, facial expressions are playing an important role in medical sciences, particularly helping the patients with bipolar disease, whose mood changes very frequently. In this study, an algorithm, automated framework for facial detection using a convolutional neural network (FD-CNN) is proposed with four convolution layers and two hidden layers to improve accuracy. An extended Cohn-Kanade (CK+) dataset is used that includes facial images of different males and females with expressions such as anger, fear, disgust, contempt, neutral, happy, sad, and surprise. In this study, FD-CNN is performed in three major steps that include preprocessing, feature extraction, and classification. By using this proposed method, an accuracy of 94% is obtained in FER. In order to validate the proposed algorithm, K-fold cross-validation is performed. After validation, sensitivity and specificity are calculated which are 94.02% and 99.14%, respectively. Furthermore, the f1 score, recall, and precision are calculated to validate the quality of the model which is 84.07%, 78.22%, and 94.09%, respectively.