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RSF Conference Series Engineering and Technology

Hybrid-Quantum CNN for Enhanced Facial Emotion Recognition: A Comparative Study with VGG16 on the RAF-DB Dataset

Mangaras Yanu Florestiyanto, Herman Dwi Surjono, Handaru Jati, Wilis Kaswidjanti, Revta Faritzy

Published Oct 15, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Facial expression recognition (FER) underpins applications in affective computing but remains challenged by computational cost and the ambiguity of compound emotions. We introduce a Hybrid-Quantum Convolutional Neural Network (HQ-CNN) that integrates quantum principles (superposition, entanglement) into a classical CNN pipeline to enhance representational power and efficiency. Evaluated on the Real-World Affective Faces Database (RAF-DB), the HQ-CNN improves accuracy by 4.60% on basic emotions and 4.47% on compound emotions, while reducing computation time by up to 22.11% and 6.20%, respectively, relative to a VGG16 baseline. Confusion-matrix analysis shows fewer misclassifications on challenging compound categories, indicating better separation of overlapping affective cues. These results support the use of quantum-enhanced architectures as a viable path toward robust, real-time FER systems.

DOI
10.31098/cset.v4i1.1014

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Facial expression recognition (FER) underpins applications in affective computing but remains challenged by computational cost and the ambiguity of compound emotions. We introduce a Hybrid-Quantum Convolutional Neural Network (HQ-CNN) that integrates quantum principles (superposition, entanglement) into a classical CNN pipeline to enhance representational power and efficiency. Evaluated on the Real-World Affective Faces Database (RAF-DB), the HQ-CNN improves accuracy by 4.60% on basic emotions and 4.47% on compound emotions, while reducing computation time by up to 22.11% and 6.20%, respectively, relative to a VGG16 baseline. Confusion-matrix analysis shows fewer misclassifications on challenging compound categories, indicating better separation of overlapping affective cues. These results support the use of quantum-enhanced architectures as a viable path toward robust, real-time FER systems.
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Emotion recognition in speech is essential for human-computer interaction. This study introduces a refined hybrid Quantum Convolutional Neural Network (QCNN) framework designed to substantially enhance Speech Emotion Recognition (SER). It addresses major challenges such as speaker variability, noise robustness, and cross-domain applicability that often limit classical deep learning models. By Utilizing quantum principles like superposition and entanglement within a 6-qubit, 8-layer parameterized circuit, the model derives highdimensional, noise-resistant features from speech signals. The method includes sophisticated preprocessing steps, such as bandpass filtering and energy-based Voice Activity Detection (VAD), followed by Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) extraction. Evaluated on a diverse dataset of 4,515 samples across eight emotions (Angry, Calm, Disgust, Fear, Happy, Neutral, Sad, Surprised), the QCNN achieved an accuracy of 86 %, setting a new benchmark. It surpasses classical approaches such as a CNN with attention(77%)(77 \%)(77%), a traditional QCNN(77.87%)(77.87 \%)(77.87%), and a hybrid quantum-classical network(76%)(76 \%)(76%). The model demonstrated balanced performance, with precision scores ranging from 0.79 to 1.0 (including a perfect 1.0 for Fear) and recall scores from 0.82 to 0.94. These results underscore the promise of quantum-enhanced neural networks in capturing complex, nonlinear speech emotion patterns and establishing a new standard for robust, generalizable SER systems.
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Micro-expression recognition has emerged as a critical area of study in affective computing, with significant applications in psychological analysis, security, and human-computer interaction. However, traditional methods often struggle to accurately capture and interpret subtle, rapid, and gender-specific facial micro-expressions due to challenges such as noise, limited datasets, and variations in expression intensity. This paper introduces an innovative approach, the Error-Corrected Quantum Convolutional Neural Network (EQCNN), to address these challenges and enhance the recognition of gender-based micro-expressions. The proposed EQCNN leverages the principles of quantum computing, incorporating error detection and correction mechanisms within its architecture. By employing quantum unitary gates, Hadamard gates, and CNOT gates, the model ensures data integrity and mitigates the effects of quantum decoherence. Additionally, the framework utilizes a 3π/2 phase shift and logical qubits to correct errors dynamically, optimizing the representation of micro-expression features. To validate the effectiveness of EQCNN, the model was evaluated on a gender-annotated micro-expression dataset. The results demonstrate outstanding performance, achieving an accuracy of 99.3%, an F1-score of 98.9%, a precision of 96.7%, and a recall of 98.4%. Comparative analyses show that EQCNN significantly outperforms classical and quantum-enhanced models, particularly in capturing subtle gender-specific nuances in facial expressions. The findings of this study not only advance the field of micro-expression recognition but also underline the potential of quantum computing in real-world applications requiring high precision and robustness. The proposed EQCNN framework is generalizable and can be extended to other domains involving complex image classification tasks, offering a powerful tool for tackling challenges in quantum-enhanced machine learning.
The purpose of this work is to analyze how new technologies can enhance clinical practice while also examining the physical traits of emotional expressiveness of face expression in a number of psychiatric illnesses. Hence, in this work, an automatic facial expression recognition system has been proposed that analyzes static, sequential, or video facial images from medical healthcare data to detect emotions in people's facial regions. The proposed method has been implemented in five steps. The first step is image preprocessing, where a facial region of interest has been segmented from the input image. The second component includes a classical deep feature representation and the quantum part that involves successive sets of quantum convolutional layers followed by random quantum variational circuits for feature learning. Here, the proposed system has attained a faster training approach using the proposed quantum convolutional neural network approach that takes [Formula: see text] time. In contrast, the classical convolutional neural network models have [Formula: see text] time. Additionally, some performance improvement techniques, such as image augmentation, fine-tuning, matrix normalization, and transfer learning methods, have been applied to the recognition system. Finally, the scores due to classical and quantum deep learning models are fused to improve the performance of the proposed method. Extensive experimentation with Karolinska-directed emotional faces (KDEF), Static Facial Expressions in the Wild (SFEW 2.0), and Facial Expression Recognition 2013 (FER-2013) benchmark databases and compared with other state-of-the-art methods that show the improvement of the proposed system.