Exploiting Micro-Signals for Physiological Forensics

Min Wu

Abstract: A variety of nearly invisible "micro-signals" have played important roles in media security and forensics. These noise-like micro-signals are ubiquitous and typically an order of magnitude lower in strength or scale than the dominant ones. They are traditionally removed or ignored as nuances outside the forensic domain. This keynote talk discusses the recent research harnessing micro-signals to infer a person's physiological conditions. One type of such signals is the subtle changes in facial skin color in accordance with the heartbeat. Video analysis of this repeating change provides a contact-free way to capture photo-plethysmogram (PPG). While heart rate can be tracked from videos of resting cases, it is challenging to do so for cases involving substantial motion, such as when a person is walking around, running on a treadmill, or driving on a bumpy road. It will be shown in this talk how the expertise with micro-signals from media forensics has enabled the exploration of new opportunities in physiological forensics and a broad range of applications.