# A Shared Latent for Partially-Labeled Multi-Task Facial Affect Recognition

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.16285 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.16285/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 39 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Jul 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 39)

- [DINOv3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.10104/) (2025)
- [Multi-Task Learning Using Uncertainty to Weigh Losses for Scene Geometry and Semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07115/) (2017)
- [Gradient Surgery for Multi-Task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06782/) (2020)
- [SigLIP 2: Multilingual Vision-Language Encoders with Improved Semantic Understanding, Localization, and Dense Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14786/) (2025)
- [Learning Imbalanced Datasets with Label-Distribution-Aware Margin Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.07413/) (2019)
- [Multi-Task Learning as Multi-Objective Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04650/) (2018)
- [An Overview of Multi-Task Learning in Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.05098/) (2017)
- [Long-tail learning via logit adjustment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.07314/) (2020)
- [Semi-Supervised Learning with Deep Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1406.5298/) (2014)
- [AffectNet: A Database for Facial Expression, Valence, and Arousal Computing in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.03985/) (2017)
- [Cross-stitch Networks for Multi-task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.03539/) (2016)
- [Asymmetric Loss For Multi-Label Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.14119/) (2020)
- [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)
- [General Facial Representation Learning in a Visual-Linguistic Manner](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03109/) (2021)
- [Analysing Affective Behavior in the First ABAW 2020 Competition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.11409/) (2020)
- [Affect Analysis in-the-wild: Valence-Arousal, Expressions, Action Units and a Unified Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15792/) (2021)
- [Analysing Affective Behavior in the second ABAW2 Competition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.15318/) (2021)
- [ABAW: Valence-Arousal Estimation, Expression Recognition, Action Unit Detection & Multi-Task Learning Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.10659/) (2022)
- [Face Behavior a la carte: Expressions, Affect and Action Units in a Single Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.11111/) (2019)
- [Learning a Deep ConvNet for Multi-label Classification with Partial Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.09720/) (2019)
- [ABAW: Learning from Synthetic Data & Multi-Task Learning Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.01138/) (2022)
- [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)
- [A Multi-Task Learning & Generation Framework: Valence-Arousal, Action Units & Primary Expressions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.07771/) (2018)
- [FSFM: A Generalizable Face Security Foundation Model via Self-Supervised Facial Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12032/) (2024)
- [A Multi-task Mean Teacher for Semi-supervised Facial Affective Behavior Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.04225/) (2021)
- [Behaviour4All: in-the-wild Facial Behaviour Analysis Toolkit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17717/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Strength-Parity Ensembling with Parameter-Isolated Experts for Multi-Task Affect Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.16290/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Facial affect in the wild is naturally multi-task: valence-arousal, discrete expressions, and facial action units describe the same face. Yet real corpora annotate these tasks only partially and unevenly, so most systems mask the missing labels or impute pseudo-labels and forgo the cross-task signal. We instead cast partially-labeled multi-task learning as marginalization over a shared affect latent: one variational bottleneck mediates all three task decoders, so a frame annotated for one task shapes the representation the others use, and the masked objective reappears as the reconstruction term of an evidence lower bound. On s-Aff-Wild2, where only 37% of frames carry all three labels, the classes are severely imbalanced, and pretraining on the source data is disallowed, we isolate where this coupling acts. On a single backbone it lifts expression macro-F1 from 0.403 for a dedicated specialist to 0.446, which the masked-loss model does not reach; a second, near-peer backbone with decorrelated errors then breaks an action-unit ceiling that external action-unit data could not, while valence-arousal stays within noise. Every gain is disciplined by a matched-control negative; together these controls indicate that the rare-class failure is representational, not a matter of loss shaping. As each task's source is chosen on the evaluation split, we report the assembled result, a combined multi-task score of 1.679 on validation, as an in-sample endpoint and rest our conclusions on the controlled comparisons; a small, regime-dependent transfer of the expression advantage to AffectNet and RAF-DB is presented as exploratory rather than conclusive.