Presentation and validation of the Radboud Faces Database

TLDR

Research on facial information processing would benefit from a stimulus set that systematically varies expressions, gaze, and head orientation while keeping other picture characteristics constant and is technically standardized. This article introduces the freely available Radboud Faces Database, which provides such a systematically varied stimulus set of Caucasian adult and child faces. The database is described in detail and validated by rating all frontal images for expression, intensity, clarity, genuineness, attractiveness, and valence. The validation revealed very high recognition rates for the intended facial expressions.

Abstract

Many research fields concerned with the processing of information contained in human faces would benefit from face stimulus sets in which specific facial characteristics are systematically varied while other important picture characteristics are kept constant. Specifically, a face database in which displayed expressions, gaze direction, and head orientation are parametrically varied in a complete factorial design would be highly useful in many research domains. Furthermore, these stimuli should be standardised in several important, technical aspects. The present article presents the freely available Radboud Faces Database offering such a stimulus set, containing both Caucasian adult and children images. This face database is described both procedurally and in terms of content, and a validation study concerning its most important characteristics is presented. In the validation study, all frontal images were rated with respect to the shown facial expression, intensity of expression, clarity of expression, genuineness of expression, attractiveness, and valence. The results show very high recognition of the intended facial expressions.