Facial coding

As hard as people try to be open and honest with themselves and researchers, it’s not always possible. As an unobtrusive method, facial coding allows researchers to better understand subtle, often unnoticed human emotions that are attached to expressed opinions. Our EyeHome™ tool gives your easy access to facial coding on every online study.

What is facial coding?

Facial coding is a process of identifying and measuring human emotions as rendered in facial expressions. In market research, it is typically done via webcam. Coding takes place either by experts who have been specifically trained to identify movements in a face, or by computer algorithms that have been taught to identify specific motions. ​

What is the facial action coding system(facs)?

Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is a specific method for conducting facial coding. This particular method categorizes facial movements using a system developed by a Swedish anatomist named Carl-Herman Hjortsjö, and adopted by Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen. This popular system has been in use for forty years and continues to be extensively researched.​

Applications

Whether you’re running a qualitative or quantitative study, a usage and attitude, concept test, or package test study, any online research using video can take advantage of facial coding. Our EyeHome™ tool, which is automatically incorporated in every online survey allows participants to record their opinions using their own webcam. This video is then readily available for facial coding via the FACS methodology.​