Hugging Rain Man: A Novel Facial Action Units Dataset for Analyzing Atypical Facial Expressions in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
This work addresses the need for better understanding and early screening of ASD through facial expression analysis, but it is incremental as it builds on existing datasets and methods.
The paper tackles the problem of identifying objective facial features underlying atypical expressions in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by introducing the Hugging Rain Man dataset with 130,000 frames and 22 action units, revealing significant differences between ASD and typical development groups in static images and providing a temporal regression method for dynamic analysis.
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often exhibit atypical facial expressions. However, the specific objective facial features that underlie this subjective perception remain unclear. In this paper, we introduce a novel dataset, Hugging Rain Man (HRM), which includes facial action units (AUs) manually annotated by FACS experts for both children with ASD and typical development (TD). The dataset comprises a rich collection of posed and spontaneous facial expressions, totaling approximately 130,000 frames, along with 22 AUs, 10 Action Descriptors (ADs), and atypicality ratings. A statistical analysis of static images from the HRM reveals significant differences between the ASD and TD groups across multiple AUs and ADs when displaying the same emotional expressions, confirming that participants with ASD tend to demonstrate more irregular and diverse expression patterns. Subsequently, a temporal regression method was presented to analyze atypicality of dynamic sequences, thereby bridging the gap between subjective perception and objective facial characteristics. Furthermore, baseline results for AU detection are provided for future research reference. This work not only contributes to our understanding of the unique facial expression characteristics associated with ASD but also provides potential tools for ASD early screening. Portions of the dataset, features, and pretrained models are accessible at: \url{https://github.com/Jonas-DL/Hugging-Rain-Man}.