Person authentication from video of faces: A behavioral and physiological approach using pseudo hierarchical hidden Markov models

Abstract

In this paper a novel approach to identity verification, based on the analysis of face video streams, is proposed, which makes use of both physiological and behavioral features. While physical features are obtained from the subject's face appearance, behavioral features are obtained by asking the subject to vocalize a given sentence. The recorded video sequence is modelled using a Pseudo-Hierarchical Hidden Markov Model, a new type of HMM in which the emission probability of each state is represented by another HMM. The number of states are automatically determined from the data by unsupervised clustering of expressions of faces in the video. Preliminary results on real image data show the feasibility of the proposed approach. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.