Unsupervised Learning of Eye State Prototypes for Semantically Rich Blinking Detection

Blinking contributes to the health and protection of the eye and also holds potential in the context of muscle or nerve disorder diagnosis. Traditional methods of classifying eye blinking as open or closed are insufficient, as they do not capture medical-relevant aspects like closure speed, duration, or percentage. The issue could be solved by reliably detecting blinking intervals in high-temporal recordings. Our research demonstrates the reliable detection of blinking events through data-driven analysis of the eye aspect ratio. In an unsupervised manner, we establish an eye state prototype to identify blink intervals and measure inter-eye synchronicity between moments of peak closure. Additionally, our research shows that manually defined prototypes yield comparable results. Our results demonstrate inter-eye synchronicity up to 4.16 ms. We anticipate that medical professionals could utilize our methods to identify or define disease-specific prototypes as potential diagnostic tools.