FACES Help FACES Help
Contents
1. Home 1.1 News 1.2 Login 2. Pictures 2.1 Picture List 2.2 Picture View 3. Albums 3.1 Album List 3.2 Album View 3.3 Export 4. Search 4.1 Advanced Search 4.2 Public Albums Search 5. Usage Statistics 6. Support 1. Home
FACES is a database of facial expressions in adults of different ages that is freely available for usage in scientific research. It contains 2,052 pictures of naturalistic facial expressions of 171 younger, middle-aged, and older adults. For each person, two sets of images depicting six different emotions (neutrality, sadness, disgust, fear, anger, and happiness) are available.
To protect the personal rights of the people involved, the pictures contained in FACES are made available to researchers on a case-by-case (i.e., person-by-person and study-by-study) basis. Unregistered users can view 72 example pictures of six different individuals to gain insight into the FACES collection and some of its software. Logged-in users will see all available pictures and have the possibility to create their own (private or published)
albums.
Full access to this online service is possible only after registration and log-in. To apply for an account, please complete the
application form.
top 1.1 News
FACES will be extended over time by the addition of further data and functions. All information concerning the development of the database will be posted in the News section of the FACES homepage. This section is based on an external blog, which is also linked to FACES via the
Blog link in the meta menu at the top right of each page.
top 1.2 Login
Please enter your user name and password to view all pictures in the FACES database and to use the full set of functions (in particular, all album functions).
If you have forgotten your password, please contact the
FACES Support Team.
top 2. Pictures
All pictures contained in FACES are listed on the
Pictures page.
2.1 Picture List
In this list, you can browse through all available pictures. It is possible to change the number of hits displayed per page and the sorting order. Changes in the display will be saved until the end of the session. It is also possible to go directly to a particular page of the list.
Sort The pictures displayed can be ordered according to five attributes:
Age, Emotion, Gender, Person-ID, and
Picture Set. Per default, the following multiple sorting will be used:
Emotion (sorted alphabetically:
Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Neutrality, Sadness), Person-ID, Picture Set. You can change the sorting by selecting the appropriate criteria from the drop-down boxes, clicking the adjacent arrow to specify whether ascending or descending order is required and confirming this selection by clicking on
Sort.
top Add pictures to an Album It is possible to add pictures to a private album (but not to published or withdrawn albums) when viewing pictures in almost all display formats (such as browse, search results, detailed view of a picture). First, the album must be activated (
Make active) in the album list (see
Album List). The active album will be displayed in the row above the pictures (which is colored green when an album is activated, and is otherwise white).
An
Add button is displayed below each picture in FACES; clicking this button adds the selected picture to the active album. This function is also available for the detailed view of a picture that is already part of an album, but not the selected one. It is also possible to add all the pictures displayed on one page or all the pictures displayed on all pages of a picture list to the active album.
If no active album is selected, the
Add button is disabled (black)
All pictures added to the active album will be marked with a green frame so that you can easily see which pictures are already included in the album and which are not.
It is not possible to add a picture to an album more than once.
top 2.2 Picture View
The
View button below each picture has the same effect as clicking on the picture itself. It provides detailed information about the picture (its attributes and values) and an enlarged version in optimal resolution for use on the internet (labeled
Web Resolution). It is also possible to view the technical metadata of the picture in its original resolution and the original resolution itself (by clicking on the picture).
When viewing the details of a picture, it is possible to go directly to the details for the previous/next picture in the selected picture list.
It is also possible to
Toggle between sets. Two pictures of each emotion are available for each person. The difference between these two sets of pictures is labeled using the attribute
Picture Set with values
a and
b. Clicking on
Toggle between sets displays the same picture from the other picture set for detailed comparison. This function is only available in the detailed view during browsing, and not when viewing a picture in an album.
During browsing in the detailed view, it is also possible to display
All pictures of the selected person.
Pictures from the detailed view can also be added to a private album. For details see
Add pictures to an album.
top 3. Albums
An album is a set of selected pictures created by a user. The aim is to give researchers the opportunity to create their own selection of pictures for use in further studies. Albums may be private selections (visible only to the user who created them) or published for purposes of referencing in a publication (visible to all FACES users).
You have to be logged in to the system to use the album functions. You are then able to activate each album you have created and to add pictures to it during browsing (see
Add pictures to an album).
top 3.1 Album List
This list displays all albums accessible to the user: all albums created by the individual user (identified via the user account) irrespective of their status (private, published, or withdrawn) and all albums published by FACES users. If the user is not logged in, this list contains only all published albums.
As for picture lists, you can change the number of hits displayed per page and the sorting order. Changes in the display will be saved until the end of the session. It is also possible to go directly to a particular page of the list.
Organize You can create a new album by clicking on
Create Album and entering the required information (album name, author name and affiliation). Information on further authors and a description of the album's content can be added optionally. You can immediately select the new album as the
Active Album. This selection remains valid until you activate another of your private albums or closes the session.
A newly created album is automatically given the status
private. That means that it is visible only to the person (identified via the user account) who created it (i.e., the
Owner), who can now add and remove pictures as required (see
Add pictures to an album). The owner also has the option to edit the album`s metadata (see
Edit album) or to delete the whole album (see
Delete album).
It is possible to delete several private albums from the list in one step. To do this, you must select the checkbox in front of the album names and click on
Delete selected albums.
Filter The album list can be filtered for following criteria: all albums, all public albums, my albums, my public albums, my private albums, and my withdrawn albums.
Sort The album list can be sorted in ascending or descending order by the following criteria: status, album name, and date last modified.
top 3.2 Album View
To view the contents of an album (the pictures and detailed metadata), you have to select the album by clicking on its name in the album list. The active album can also be viewed via the row above the list (which is colored green when an active album is activated, and is otherwise white). All metadata available for each album is displayed. If fields are missing, it is because they do not contain any input.
The pictures in an album can be browsed and viewed in the same way as the pictures in a
picture list. They can also be removed from the album by selecting the
Remove button below each picture.
Sort The pictures in an album can be sorted in the same way as the pictures in a
picture list.
Organize
The functions available under
Organize depend on the current status of the album.
Private:
- Edit album: Allows the owner of the album to edit the album's metadata.
- Delete album: Allows albums that are no longer needed to be deleted by the owner. Once deleted, an album cannot be restored.
- Publish album: Allows the owner of an album to make its content visible to all FACES users. A published album can not longer be edited, changed, or deleted, because it may already have been cited by another FACES user. A user who is not logged in and who follows a link to a published album will see only the metadata of that album and the publicly available pictures. The other pictures are visible only to logged-in users.
- Remove all pictures on this page / in this album: Allows the user to remove all pictures displayed on the current page or all pictures in the album.
Published:
- Withdraw album: The only way to delete a published album is to withdraw it. You are requested to enter a comment specifying the reason for withdrawal. The album now has the status withdrawn. It is no longer visible in the FACES overview of published albums, but is still retrievable for users who know the exact URL of the album, which will remain valid. (The album may already have been cited. Persistent URLs ensure that links to albums will remain valid over time. However, the withdrawal comment indicates why the creator of the album has changed its status.) The withdrawn album remains visible in the owner's album list.
top 3.3 Export
It is possible to export (private and published) albums, but not individual pictures. In order to export a picture, you must first create an album containing the relevant picture(s). This album can then be exported. You can select the required picture format (
Thumbnails or
Web Resolution) and specify whether the attributes should be exported in a separate csv file or the attributes together with the technical metadata should be exported in a separate xml file.
Before exporting, you have to agree to the FACES release agreement (a short version of the agreement signed when applying for a user account), thus confirming your awareness that you are dealing with sensitive data.
It is not currently possible to export albums with more than 800 pictures. However, the
Download Collection button under
Pictures allows you to download the whole FACES collection in one step.
top 4. Search
4.1 Advanced Search
This search function applies to pictures only. It is possible to search within the whole FACES collection (default setting) or within a specific published
album.
All searches are carried out on the basis of the attributes used to describe each picture (e.g.,
Emotion,
Age). Please note that when several search components are selected, the following rule applies: search criteria within the same attribute will be combined using the Boolean operator "OR" (e.g.,
Emotion =
Anger OR
Emotion =
Happiness), whereas search criteria specified for different types of attributes will be connected by the Boolean operator "AND" (e.g.,
Age =
Young AND
Emotion =
Happiness).
It is possible to add a picture from the search results to a private album. For details, see
Add pictures to an album.
Person-ID It is possible to search for a specific person via their ID. Please note that all IDs are in the range 004-182, but that not all numbers within this range are assigned to a person (there are only 171 people in the collection).
Picture Set Two sets of images depicting the six different emotions are available for each person. These two
Picture Sets are labeled
a and
b. Pictures were randomly assigned to set
a or
b. The labels are not intended as a quality criterion but rather for comparison purposes.
top 4.2 Public Album Search
This search function applies to albums. Here, it is only possible for users to enter a free-text search string that will be used to search in the album names, authors, affiliations, and descriptions of all published albums (private and withdrawn albums are not searchable).
top 5. Usage Statistics
FACES stores some anonymous usage statistics: the number of visits (number of different retrievals of the homepage once per user session) for all users, the number of executed log-ins, the number of executed exports, and the number of exported pictures. These data will be evaluated per month.
These usage statistics are visible only to the administrator(s) of FACES. For further details, please contact the
FACES Technical Agent.
top 6. Support
For further support, please contact the
FACES Support Team.
top