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Everything about Facial Action Coding System
System of classifying human facial movements
The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is a system to taxonomize human facial movements by their appearance on the face, based on a system originally developed by a Swedish anatomist named Carl-Herman Hjortsjö. It was later adopted by Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen, and published in 1978. Ekman, Friesen, and Joseph C. Hager published a significant update to FACS in 2002. Movements of individual facial muscles are encoded by the FACS from slight different instant changes in facial appearance. It has proven useful to psychologists and to animators. Wikipedia →
🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path
- Read the overview: Facial Action Coding SystemA 5-minute orientation
- Skim a recent paper: CalliFACS: The common marmoset Facial Action Coding SystemInfluential work since 2022
- Pick up a classic book: MPEG-4 facial animationThe most-reprinted book on the subject
- Read the landmark paper: Coding, analysis, interpretation, and recognition of facial expressionsCited 602 times
- Go sideways: Facial expressionA closely related topic
- Go sideways: Paul EkmanA closely related topic
📖 Definitions
No dictionary entry for this exact phrase.
🗂️ The subject at a glance
🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)
Coding, analysis, interpretation, and recognition of facial expressions
Automated Facial Action Coding System for dynamic analysis of facial expressions in neuropsychiatric disorders
Adaptive norm-based coding of facial identity
Impaired holistic coding of facial expression and facial identity in congenital prosopagnosia
EquiFACS: The Equine Facial Action Coding System
Facial Micro-Expression Detection in Hi-Speed Video Based on Facial Action Coding System (FACS)
Anti-Expression Aftereffects Reveal Prototype-Referenced Coding of Facial Expressions
Experience-dependent coding of facial expression in superior temporal sulcus
🆕 Influential since 2022
CalliFACS: The common marmoset Facial Action Coding System
Spontaneous Facial Expressions and Micro-expressions Coding: From Brain to Face
Automatic Coding of Facial Expressions of Pain: Are We There Yet?
Automatic facial coding predicts self-report of emotion, advertisement and brand effects elicited by video commercials
Facial Action Coding and Hybrid Deep Learning Architectures for Autism Detection
📚 Books worth reading
MPEG-4 facial animationRobert Forchheimer · 2002
The face · 1995- 📕Lower face--skeletal structures and dentition · 1995
The face--soft tissue · 1995
Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.
🔗 Related topics
- Facial expression Facial expression is a motion and positioning of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. These movements convey the emotional state of an individual…
- Paul Ekman Paul Ekman (February 15, 1934 – November 17, 2025) was an American psychologist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who was a…
- Facial coding Facial coding is the process of measuring human emotions through facial expressions. Emotions can be detected by computer algorithms for automatic emotion…
- Grimace scale The grimace scale (GS), sometimes called the grimace score, is a method of assessing the occurrence or severity of pain experienced by non-human animals…
- Carl-Herman Hjortsjö Carl-Herman Hjortsjö (8 December 1914 – 3 July 1978), born Carl-Herman Hirschlaff, was a Swedish anatomist, physician, and physical anthropologist. His…
- Pathognomy Pathognomy is "a 'semiotik' of the transient features of someone's face or body, be it voluntary or involuntary". Examples of this can be laughter and…
- Affective computing Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdiscip…
- Microexpression A microexpression is a facial expression with very short duration. It is the innate result of a voluntary and an involuntary emotional response occurring…