title: Eyelid contour detection and tracking for startle research related eye-blink measurements from high-speed video records.
abstract: Using the positions of the eyelids is an effective and contact-free way for the measurement of startle induced eye-blinks, which plays an important role in human psychophysiological research. To the best of our knowledge, no methods for an efficient detection and tracking of the exact eyelid contours in image sequences captured at high-speed exist that are conveniently usable by psychophysiological researchers. In this publication a semi-automatic model-based eyelid contour detection and tracking algorithm for the analysis of high-speed video recordings from an eye tracker is presented. As a large number of images have been acquired prior to method development it was important that our technique is able to deal with images that are recorded without any special parametrisation of the eye tracker. The method entails pupil detection, specular reflection removal and makes use of dynamic model adaption. In a proof-of-concept study we could achieve a correct detection rate of 90.6%. With this approach, we provide a feasible method to accurately assess eye-blinks from high-speed video recordings.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Innovative Informatics Applications, Trier University of Applied Sciences, 54293 Trier, Germany. Electronic address: f.bernard@hochschule-trier.de.
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.forename: Christian Eric
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Deuter
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gemmar
authors.forename: Hartmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schachinger
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001767:Blinking / Q000502:physiology*; D004576:Electromyography; D005143:Eyelids / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008954:Models, Biological; D011603:Psychophysiology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013216:Reflex, Startle / Q000502:physiology*; D014741:Video Recording
keywords: Eye-blink detection; Eyelid detection; Eyelid tracking; Image processing; Segmentation; Startle eye-blink