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Comparative Anatomy of the Face

Encyclopedia of Biometrics

Synonyms

Anatomic; Structural and functional anatomy

Definition

Facial anatomy – the soft-tissue structures attached to the bones of the facial skeleton, including epidermis, dermis, subcutaneous fascia, and mimetic musculature.

Introduction

Face recognition is a leading approach to person recognition. In well-controlled settings, accuracy is comparable to that of historically reliable biometrics including fingerprint and iris recognition [1]. In less-controlled settings, accuracy is attenuated with variation in pose, illumination, and facial expression among other factors. A principal research challenge is to increase robustness to these sources of variation and to improve performance in unstructured settings in which image acquisition may occur without active subject involvement.

Current approaches to face recognition are primarily data driven. The use of domain knowledge tends to be limited to the search for relatively stable facial features, such as the inner canthi and the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Anne M. Burrows

  2. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Jeffrey F. Cohn

Authors
  1. Anne M. Burrows
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  2. Jeffrey F. Cohn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anne M. Burrows .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center Biometrics Research & Security Nat'l. Lab of Pattern Recognition, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Stan Z. Li

  2. Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

    Anil K. Jain

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Burrows, A.M., Cohn, J.F. (2014). Comparative Anatomy of the Face. In: Li, S., Jain, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Biometrics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27733-7_190-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27733-7_190-3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27733-7

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Biometric Identity Assurance Services
    Published:
    31 May 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27733-7_234-3

  2. Comparative Anatomy of the Face
    Published:
    30 May 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27733-7_190-3

  3. Anatomy of Friction Ridge Skin
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    21 May 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27733-7_48-3

  4. Anti-Spoofing: Face
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    19 May 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27733-7_67-2

  5. Ear Biometrics
    Published:
    16 May 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27733-7_173-2

  6. Original

    Eye Features and Anatomy
    Published:
    15 May 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27733-7_9172-1

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