mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Compound Expression Recognition via Large Vision-Language Models

arXiv 2503.11241 ↗First posted 14 Mar 2025cs.CV cs.AIcited by 3

On the map: Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models → Multimodal emotion understanding

Abstract (arXiv)

Compound Expression Recognition (CER) is crucial for understanding human emotions and improving human-computer interaction. However, CER faces challenges due to the complexity of facial expressions and the difficulty of capturing subtle emotional cues. To address these issues, we propose a novel approach leveraging Large Vision-Language Models (LVLMs). Our method employs a two-stage fine-tuning process: first, pre-trained LVLMs are fine-tuned on basic facial expressions to establish foundational patterns; second, the model is further optimized on a compound-expression dataset to refine visual-language feature interactions. Our approach achieves advanced accuracy on the RAF-DB dataset and demonstrates strong zero-shot generalization on the C-EXPR-DB dataset, showcasing its potential for real-world applications in emotion analysis and human-computer interaction.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Multimodal emotion understanding, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models. Builds on 16 of its 27 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 Mar 2025.

Builds on

16 of 27 references.

References · 16

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  2. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,199
  3. 2019Parameter-Efficient Transfer Learning for NLPcited by 4,195
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  7. 2021Affect Analysis in-the-wild: Valence-Arousal, Expressions, Action Units and a Unified Frameworkcited by 174
  8. 2021Distribution Matching for Heterogeneous Multi-Task Learning: a Large-scale Face Studycited by 168
  9. 2021Analysing Affective Behavior in the second ABAW2 Competitioncited by 163
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  11. 2019Face Behavior a la carte: Expressions, Affect and Action Units in a Single Networkcited by 155
  12. 2022ABAW: Learning from Synthetic Data & Multi-Task Learning Challengescited by 110
4 more
  1. 2023ABAW: Valence-Arousal Estimation, Expression Recognition, Action Unit Detection & Emotional Reaction Intensity Estimation Challengescited by 110
  2. 2024The 6th Affective Behavior Analysis in-the-wild (ABAW) Competitioncited by 78
  3. 2024Distribution Matching for Multi-Task Learning of Classification Tasks: a Large-Scale Study on Faces & Beyondcited by 60
  4. 20247th ABAW Competition: Multi-Task Learning and Compound Expression Recognitioncited by 53

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 2; 2026: 1.

3 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024Zero-shot Compound Expression Recognition with Visual Language Model at the 6th ABAW Challenge
  2. 2025Facial Emotion Learning with Text-Guided Multiview Fusion via Vision-Language Model for 3D/4D Facial Expression Recognition
  3. 2025Rethinking Facial Expression Recognition in the Era of Multimodal Large Language Models: Benchmark, Datasets, and Beyond
  4. 2024ExpLLM: Towards Chain of Thought for Facial Expression Recognition
  5. 2024EMO-LLaMA: Enhancing Facial Emotion Understanding with Instruction Tuning
  6. 2025Self-Supervised Multi-View Representation Learning using Vision-Language Model for 3D/4D Facial Expression Recognition
  7. 2025Evaluating Vision-Language Models for Emotion Recognition
  8. 2026Why Do Vision Language Models Struggle To Recognize Human Emotions?