Abstract

Facial infra-red imaging (IRI) is a contact-free technique complimenting the traditional psychophysiological measures to characterize physiological profile. However, its full potential in affective research is arguably unmet due to the analytical challenges it poses. Here we acquired facial IRI data, facial expressions and traditional physiological recordings (heart rate and skin conductance) from healthy human subjects whilst they viewed a 20-min-long unedited emotional movie. We present a novel application of motion correction and the results of spatial independent component analysis of the thermal data. Three distinct spatial components are recovered associated with the nose, the cheeks and respiration. We first benchmark this methodology against a traditional nose-tip region-of-interest based technique showing an expected similarity of signals extracted by these methods. We then show significant correlation of all the physiological responses across subjects, including the thermal signals, suggesting common dynamic shifts in emotional state induced by the movie. In sum, this study introduces an innovative approach to analyse facial IRI data and highlights the potential of thermal imaging to robustly capture emotion-related changes induced by ecological stimuli.

Details

Title
Data-driven analysis of facial thermal responses and multimodal physiological consistency among subjects
Author
Sonkusare Saurabh 1 ; Breakspear, Michael 2 ; Pang Tianji 3 ; Nguyen, Vinh Thai 4 ; Frydman Sascha 4 ; Guo, Christine Cong 4 ; Aburn, Matthew J 4 

 QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1049.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 1395); The University of Queensland, School of Medicine, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1003.2) (ISNI:0000 0000 9320 7537) 
 QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1049.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 1395); The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia (GRID:grid.266842.c) (ISNI:0000 0000 8831 109X) 
 QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1049.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 1395); Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China (GRID:grid.440588.5) (ISNI:0000 0001 0307 1240) 
 QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1049.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 1395) 
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2538876253
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.