Affective state detection, as an emerging field of artificial intelligence, is the key to designing effective natural human-computer interaction, especially for e-learning. It will be helpful to make the computer understand learners’ perceptions and...
Affective state detection, as an emerging field of artificial intelligence, is the key to designing effective natural human-computer interaction, especially for e-learning. It will be helpful to make the computer understand learners’ perceptions and provide appropriate guidance, just like teachers in traditional face-to-face classroom learning. Puzzlement is the most frequent non-neutral affective state in learning, and it is usually a sign that learners need more information and guidance. In this paper, we explore a machine learning approach for puzzlement detection from natural facial expression. We use active appearance models (AAMs) to decouple shape and appearance parameters from the face video sequences. Support vector machines (SVMs) are utilized to classify puzzlement and non-puzzlement with several features derived from AAMs. Using a 10-fold cross validation, we achieve the highest recognition rate of 98.9%. Experimental results indicate the feasibility of automatic frame-level puzzlement detection.