# HSE-NN Team at the 4th ABAW Competition: Multi-task Emotion Recognition and Learning from Synthetic Images

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09508 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.09508/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 15 of its 25 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Jul 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [Sharpness-Aware Minimization for Efficiently Improving Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01412/) (2020)
- [Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.10833/) (2021)
- [AffectNet: A Database for Facial Expression, Valence, and Arousal Computing in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.03985/) (2017)
- [Expression, Affect, Action Unit Recognition: Aff-Wild2, Multi-Task Learning and ArcFace](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.04855/) (2019)
- [Deep Affect Prediction in-the-wild: Aff-Wild Database and Challenge, Deep Architectures, and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.10938/) (2018)
- [Affect Analysis in-the-wild: Valence-Arousal, Expressions, Action Units and a Unified Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15792/) (2021)
- [Distribution Matching for Heterogeneous Multi-Task Learning: a Large-scale Face Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.03790/) (2021)
- [ABAW: Valence-Arousal Estimation, Expression Recognition, Action Unit Detection & Multi-Task Learning Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.10659/) (2022)
- [ABAW: Learning from Synthetic Data & Multi-Task Learning Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.01138/) (2022)
- [Distract Your Attention: Multi-head Cross Attention Network for Facial Expression Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07270/) (2021)
- [Transformer-based Multimodal Information Fusion for Facial Expression Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12367/) (2022)
- [Facial expression and attributes recognition based on multi-task learning of lightweight neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.17107/) (2021)
- [Photorealistic Facial Synthesis in the Dimensional Affect Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.08004/) (2018)
- [Using Self-Supervised Auxiliary Tasks to Improve Fine-Grained Facial Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.06421/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [ABAW: Valence-Arousal Estimation, Expression Recognition, Action Unit Detection & Emotional Reaction Intensity Estimation Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.01498/) (2023)
- [The 6th Affective Behavior Analysis in-the-wild (ABAW) Competition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.19344/) (2024)
- [Distribution Matching for Multi-Task Learning of Classification Tasks: a Large-Scale Study on Faces & Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.01219/) (2024)
- [7th ABAW Competition: Multi-Task Learning and Compound Expression Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.03835/) (2024)
- [Affective Behaviour Analysis Using Pretrained Model with Facial Priori](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.11679/) (2022)
- [A Shared Latent for Partially-Labeled Multi-Task Facial Affect Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.16285/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, we present the results of the HSE-NN team in the 4th competition on Affective Behavior Analysis in-the-wild (ABAW). The novel multi-task EfficientNet model is trained for simultaneous recognition of facial expressions and prediction of valence and arousal on static photos. The resulting MT-EmotiEffNet extracts visual features that are fed into simple feed-forward neural networks in the multi-task learning challenge. We obtain performance measure 1.3 on the validation set, which is significantly greater when compared to either performance of baseline (0.3) or existing models that are trained only on the s-Aff-Wild2 database. In the learning from synthetic data challenge, the quality of the original synthetic training set is increased by using the super-resolution techniques, such as Real-ESRGAN. Next, the MT-EmotiEffNet is fine-tuned on the new training set. The final prediction is a simple blending ensemble of pre-trained and fine-tuned MT-EmotiEffNets. Our average validation F1 score is 18% greater than the baseline convolutional neural network.