Visage Emotion Analyzer
Category:
AddIn:
Scope:
Code Snippets:
Supports Material List:
Status Screen Widgets:
License:
Emotion Recognition
Visage Technologies
Local
Triggered
no
XAML Emotion Plot
Requires license from Visage Technologies
In this article:
The Visage Emotion Analyzer element enables real-time emotion recognition from participants’ facial expressions, using live webcam input and Visage Technologies. The element detects and analyzes facial features, classifies emotional states, and provides both live plots and logged results for research experiments.
Description
The Visage Emotion Analyzer element enables real-time recognition of facial expressions from webcam video streams, powered by the Visage Technologies. This element detects and classifies seven universal emotions — Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness, Happiness, Surprise, and Neutral — providing researchers with a powerful tool to study affective responses during experiments.
Alongside emotion recognition, the analyzer computes probability values for each emotion, reflecting their current likelihood based on the participant’s facial expressions. These probabilities can be visualized in a dynamic real-time emotion plot, which updates continuously and can be embedded into EventIDE’s status screen for live monitoring.
The element supports multi-face tracking, allowing the selection of a target face when several participants are in view. Users can configure the camera source, resolution, and frame size, ensuring compatibility with various setups and performance requirements. In addition, plots are fully customizable — from visual themes and font size to the inclusion of face frames overlaid on the video feed.
Experimenters can also record synchronized video alongside emotion analyses, export detailed reports, and annotate data files with custom labels. This makes the Visage Emotion Analyzer highly suitable for applications in psychology, neuroscience, HCI, affective computing, and behavioral studies, where precise measurement of emotional states is essential.
Key Features
Real-time emotion recognition – Analyzes participant facial expressions via webcam using the Visage Technology SDK.
Recognized emotions – Detects and classifies seven universal expressions: Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness, Happiness, Surprise, Neutral.
Emotion probability output – Provides continuous probability values for each emotion, available in data and live plots.
Real-time visualization – Includes a dynamic emotion plot, showing current emotion probabilities.
Multiple face support – Tracks and analyzes up to a defined maximum number of faces.
Flexible camera integration – Choose and configure any connected camera with adjustable resolution and frame size.
Data logging and sync – Save detailed emotion analyses, export synced video recordings, and annotate results with custom labels.
Experiment integration – Bind live plots into EventIDE status screens panels for monitoring during experiments.
Properties
Name | Description | Property Class | Type | On runtime change |
Visage Settings | ||||
License File | Path to Visage Technologies license file (required for all Visage elements) | Design | String | – |
Analysis Rate | Rate of face analysis by Visage SDK (Hz), shared across all Visage elements | Design | Double | – |
Max Faces | Maximum number of tracked faces | Design | Int32 | – |
Face Index | Index of the face used for analysis (0 = first recognized face) | General | Int32 | ✓ |
Camera Settings | ||||
Selected Camera | Camera used for face analysis | Design | String | – |
Frame Size | Resolution of captured video; affects quality and performance | General | clSize | ✓ |
Plotting | ||||
Plot Type | Defines the type of emotion plot | Design | Int32 | – |
Plot Background | Defines background of the plot (e.g., webcam output) | General | Int32 | ✓ |
Face Frames | Outlines tracked faces when background is webcam | General | Boolean | ✓ |
Rendering Size | Resolution of rendered plot and saved images/videos | General | clSize | ✓ |
Font Size | Font size for plot labels | General | Double | ✓ |
Plot Theme | Visual theme for the plot | General | Int32 | ✓ |
XAML Emotion Plot | Live XAML control with emotion plot, can be bound to GUI panels | General | UIElem | ✓ |
Video Recording | ||||
Video Format | Compression format for recorded video (depends on installed codecs) | Design | Int32 | – |
Sync File Format | Format for sync file paired with recorded video | Design | Int32 | – |
Sync Marker | Custom text marker added to each line of sync text file | General | String | ✓ |
Results | ||||
Test Analysis Now | Runs a test analysis immediately | Design | Boolean | – |
Newest Analysis | Returns most recent emotion analysis results | General | clEmot | ✓ |
All Analyses | Returns all collected analyses | General | clEmot | ✓ |
Data Report Label | Custom label added to names of generated data report files | General | String | ✓ |
Control | ||||
Is Enabled | If set to false the element is omitted when the experiment runs | Design | Boolean | |
Title | Title of the element | Design | String |
Practical use
The Visage Emotion Analyzer element can be applied in a variety of experimental scenarios, from studying affective responses to building adaptive, emotion-driven tasks.
Technique 1: Adaptive Stimulus Control Based on Emotional State
Place the Visage Emotion Analyzer in the experiment flow, ensuring the camera settings are configured.
During runtime, monitor the Newest Analysis property, which provides the latest emotion probabilities.
Use code snippets or flow conditions to trigger adaptive responses — e.g., present a new stimulus when Surprise exceeds 0.5 probability, or pause the trial if Anger rises above a threshold.
This setup enables closed-loop emotional feedback, allowing stimuli to adapt dynamically to the participant’s affective state.
Technique 2: Recording and Annotating Emotional Responses
Configure the Video Recording properties to capture webcam footage along with emotion analysis results.
Set a custom Data Report Label property to annotate trials with task-specific information (e.g., “stimulus_03”).
Synchronize the emotion data with other recorded signals (e.g., EEG, GSR, motion capture) for multimodal analysis of participant responses.
Export Analysis List, which contain time-series probabilities of all seven emotions, along with Emotion plot and Emotion Plot Video.
This flexibility makes the Visage Emotion Analyzer a valuable tool for emotion research, usability testing, neurofeedback, and interactive media applications.
Notes
Requires valid Visage Technologies license file for activation. Ensure the Visage license file is valid and properly linked in the experiment via the License File property of the Visage Emotion Analyzer element.
The accuracy of emotion recognition depends on lighting conditions, camera quality, and participant positioning.
Use Max Faces property to analyze multiple faces. For group studies, ensure correct Face Index is selected.
Emotion probabilities are estimates, not categorical outputs — high values indicate likelihood, but mixed emotions are possible.
Performance may be affected if Analysis Rate is set too high relative to hardware capabilities.
The real-time plot is best used for monitoring; export data for statistical analysis.