Are Facial Expressions Reproducible?

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Abstract
Objectives: To determine the extent of reproducibility of five facial expressions. Design: Thirty healthy Caucasian volunteers (15 males, 15 females) aged 21 to 30 years had 20 landmarks highlighted on the face with a fine eyeliner pencil. Subjects were asked to perform a sequence of five facial expressions that were captured by a three-dimensional camera system. Each expression was repeated after 15 minutes to investigate intrasession expression reproducibility. To investigate intersession expression reproducibility, each subject returned 2 weeks after the first session. A single operator identified 3-dimensional coordinate values of each landmark. A partial ordinary procrustes analysis was used to adjust for differences in head posture between similar expressions. Statistical analysis was undertaken using analysis of variance (linear mixed effects model). Results: Intrasession expression reproducibility was least between cheek puffs (1.12 mm) and greatest between rest positions (0.74 mm). The r...