2018 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Feb.
2-3, Mumbai, India
A comparative analysis of feature extraction
techniques for face recognition
Saket Karve, Vasisht Shende
Department of Computer and Information Technology
V. J. Technological Institute
Mumbai, India.
saketk1.sk@gmail.com, vasishtshende77@gmail.com
Abstract— Face recognition finds extensive applications in
various places. To build a fully functional and reliable system for
recognizing faces, a robust and efficient face detection algorithm
is required. Existing systems incorporate geometrical and
template based approaches like distance between different points
on the face, shape of the face, matching with existing templates
and similar methods. These methods work successfully with
specific images and have a tendency to fail, when an unusual
image is tested. To overcome this, we propose statistical feature
based approach in this study for face recognition. For this
purpose, we make a detailed study of various feature extraction
techniques involving principal and independent component
analysis. Four different classifiers have been for the extracted
features. Accuracy measurements and execution time have been
recorded for the analysis. It is found that factor analysis method
outperforms principal component analysis and independent
component analysis with improved accuracy.
Keywords—face recognition, Eigen decomposition, independent
component analysis, factor analysis, feature extraction.
I. INTRODUCTION
Face recognition has been an active area of research in the
field of computer vision for the past few years. Face
recognition finds extensive use in wide range of applications
like social media, law enforcement, make secure online
payments, track down criminals, reliable biometric and many
more. Various techniques have been put forth for recognizing
faces, for example, structural features considering the
distances between different points on the face, color gradients,
template matching and so on. Face recognition involves
localization of face from a large image followed by pre-
processing it to suit the requirements of the feature extraction
technique to be employed. Various feature extraction
approaches have been used most of which focus on structural
or geometric features. Statistical approaches are also used in
the literature [2]-[9]. In this paper we investigate this further
for face recognition.
Principal Component Analysis [1] is a method used to
extract features from images. Principal components of an
image extract the most relevant and significant information
from the original image and projects it onto the Eigen
subspace. The Eigen subspace has smaller dimensions than the
original image space. Principal Components as features, help
us to extract the useful information from an image into a lower
978-1-5386-2051-9/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Rizwan Ahmed
Department of Electrical Engineering
V. J. Technological Institute
Mumbai, India.
rizwan.vjti@ieee.org
dimensional space, thus providing fewer variables for the
learning phase. This method is also referred to as Eigen Face
analysis. The image transformed in to the Eigen subspace is
called Eigen face [2], [3]. In the Eigen space, the basis vectors
are the Eigen vectors with the largest Eigen values extracted
from the original 2D data. The Eigen vectors are determined
by considering the relative variance between the pixels in the
image. This helps to extract a sub space of lower
dimensionality representing the most relevant and useful
information from the image.
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been found to
work well on correlated data. As in general, the image
manifest as highly correlated data, PCA works well for
extracting features from these images.
An image is considered as a matrix of highly correlated
data. This matrix is transformed to a lower dimensional Eigen
subspace by performing different operations on it. Then, the
covariance matrix of this matrix is found using (1). This
covariance matrix represents the relative variance between
pixels for the image. The basis vectors of the Eigen subspace
are found by finding the Eigen vectors of the covariance
matrix using (2). The Eigen vectors with highest Eigen values
are considered as the principal components. These principal
components represent what is called as Eigen face. Thus, the
image is transformed into the feature plane.
்
‫ ܥ‬ൌ ‫ܧ‬ሼሺܺ െ  ߤ௫ ሻ൫ܺȂߤ௫ ൯ ሽ (1)
‫ܥ‬௫ ݁௜ ൌ  ߣ௜ ݁௜ ǡ ݅ ൌ ͳǡʹǡ͵ǡ ǥ ǡ ݊ (2)
where, X is the 2D array (image), ߤ௫ is row-wise mean of X,
‫ ܥ‬is Covariance matrix of X; ݁௜ is Eigen vector of C; ߣ௜ is
Eigen value of C
Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a method to
extract features [6], [7]. This method uses an objective
function which minimizes intra class scattering and maximizes
inter class scattering for the given dataset. Equation 3
represents the objective function which is minimized to obtain
the independent components. Such an optimization leads to
the components which are independent of each other.
Independent Component Analysis can thus be used for feature
extraction.
ܵ௕ ܹ ൌ ߣܵ௪ ܹ (3)
 2018 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Feb. 2-3, Mumbai, India
ܵ௕ ൌ  σ௖௜ୀଵ ݊௜ ሺܺ௜ െ ߤሻሺܺ௜ െ ߤሻ் (4)
ܵ௪ ൌ  σ௖௜ୀଵ σ௡௝ୀଵ൫ܺ௜௝ െ  ߤ௜ ൯ሺܺ௜௝ െ  ߤ௜ ሻ் (5)
where, W is Weight matrix; ܵ௕ is interclass scatter matrix; ܵ௪
is intra-class scatter matrix; ݊௜ is Number of data-points; X is
Image; ߤ is row-wise mean; c is Number of classes
Factor analysis (FA) [1] is statistical approach which
searches for underlying variability in observed images. A
combination of latent variables and the error terms define the
features of an individual image. The inter-dependencies in the
data are removed and the dimension of the image is reduced
thereby restoring or combining the unobserved relevant data.
In this paper, we propose feature extraction from PCA,
ICA and FA for face recognition problem. All these features
are used as input with different classifiers for the comparative
analysis. This paper is organized as follows. With a brief
introduction in Section I, Section II explains the methodology
used for the comparative analysis. This involves the pre-
processing performed, feature extraction methods used and the
classifiers employed for the analysis. Section III covers the
results obtained from the observations. Finally, conclusions
are drawn in section IV.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. Pre-Processing
Before extracting the facial features from the image, the
face images are converted to gray-scale. Then, the image is
resized to a lower dimension if required.
B. Feature Extraction
Various dimensionality reduction techniques have been
employed for comparative analysis. Dimensionality reduction
is a statistical technique used to extract important pixel
information from the original image. The image features in the
reduced dimension space should make clear distinctions
between different classes in the dataset. Three of the most
popular dimensionality reduction techniques have been used
for comparing the performance for face recognition viz.
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) [1], Independent
Component Analysis (ICA) and Factor Analysis (FA) [1]. The
study also involves analysis of the classification using a
various combinations of extracted features. The pre-processed
images are reduced in dimension by the techniques mentioned
above. After many trials, three components are found to be
plausible choice in mean squared sense. The first three
principal components are extracted from every image, which
will be used as features. These three components carry the
most relevant information. The combination of features from
PCA and ICA, helps pick the best features from the given
image resulting in a better performance.
C. Classification
The extracted features are then passed on to the classifier
which classifies the images into the available classes. For the
comparative study, we employ four classifiers namely Multi-
Layer Perceptron (MLP), Support Vector Machine (SVM),
Decision Tree and Gaussian Naive Bayes. The dataset is
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divided into two sets – training data and test data. 70 % of the
images are kept in the training data set and the remaining are
into the test set. While dividing the dataset into the two sets, it
is ensured that 70 % of each class is into the training set. This
ensures a fair division of the data set. The classifier is trained
using 70 % of all images of every person. This is followed by
testing the trained classifier using the test data set containing
the remaining 30 % images.
As part of the analysis, different combinations of training
and test set have been used to record the results. Every image
in the data set has some unique characteristic. This influences
the performance of the classifiers significantly. The
combinations chosen are selected greedily based on the
observations made recently and the performance measured for
the different classifiers. This provides a good sample space for
generalizing the results.
Support Vector Machine [10] minimizes the upper bound
on expected generalization error, structural risk minimization.
The linear classifier chooses a separating hyperplane to
minimize the expected classification error in hidden face
pattern. Weighted combination of subset of vectors forms
optimal hyperplane. These vectors are called Support Vectors.
SVM is implemented to overcome the disadvantage of
extensive tuning in MLP.
Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) [11] is implemented
extensively in pattern recognition problems, to identify
complex conditional patterns in dense classes. A five layered
MLP is implemented to identify face patterns within the
images. Network consists of three hidden layers with up to
150 units each. Inputs to the MLP are the extracted features of
the input images. Performance is calculated with several
combinations for number of units across the layers.
Decision Tree [12] is a model generated from induction
rules obtained from the input data. Inputs to build a decision
tree are the features obtained from the feature extraction
techniques, entropy, mean and standard deviation of pixel
intensity values of input images along with label of
corresponding images.
Naïve Bayes is a probabilistic model, useful in determining
the local face pattern by joint probability of face pattern
appearance. It considers a feature of an input image
independent from other features to develop joint probability of
the image. With minimum correlation and supervised learning
Naïve Bayes can be compared against advanced SVMs and
MLP. As the image data which we provide is large and
number of features is reduced, problem stemming from Curse
of Dimensionality in Naïve Bayes is avoided.
The dataset used contains 10 images of 40 distinct persons.
Hence, a total of 400 images out of which 280 are used for
training and the rest 120 are used for testing. As shown in the
figure 1, some images of each individual contained face
images at different angles, different lighting, different
expressions and other facial characteristics. While testing on
the dataset, combination of images with peculiar
characteristics was considered for detailed analysis. Test set
was generated based on the characteristics of the face images
in the dataset.
 2018 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Feb. 2-3, Mumbai, India

1. Principal Component Analysis works better with

Naive Bayes with 87.42% average accuracy.
Decision Tree shows the worst performance when
used with PCA. However, the performance remains
similar irrespective of the classifier.
2. Independent Component Analysis shows better results
as compared to Principal Component Analysis on an
average for all classifiers. A significant improvement
can be observed in case of Decision tree learning
algorithm. As we can see from Table 1, ICA works
best with Decision Tree.
3. Combination of Principal Component Analysis and
Independent Component Analysis improved the
performance when used with all the classifiers except
Decision Tree learning. This shows that introduction
of one component of ICA in place of a Principal
Component has remarkably improved the
Fig.1 Sample images from dataset
performance.
4. Factor Analysis produced the best results with all he
classifiers tested against. 100 % accuracy was
III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS achieved with Neural Network, Support Vector
The following features have been used to calculate the Machine and Naive Bayes. Decision Tree produced
accuracy and execution time for analyzing the performance. an almost perfect result with 99.17 % accuracy. This
shows that Factor Analysis on its own is the best
• Principal Component Analysis (3 components) method suitable for classifying facial images. So,
Factor Analysis is the most suitable dimensionality
• Independent Component Analysis (3 components) reduction technique which most closely represents
• Factor Analysis (3 components) Human face.

• Principal Component Analysis (2 components) and

Independent Component Analysis (1 component)
These features have been tested against the following
classifiers,
• Multi-Layer Perceptron (Neural Network)
• Support Vector Machine (SVM)
• Decision Tree
• Gaussian Naive Bayes
Figure 2 shows a histogram plot indicating the incorrect
classification frequency for images of different individuals in
the data set used. It helps us understand the images which are
misclassified with the various features extracted against the
Fig 2: Plot of various performance metrics
different classifiers used. We make the following observations
from the results obtained.
Tables I details the average accuracy attained with all
combinations of features and classifiers.
Table I: Average Accuracy
Neural Support Decision Naive
Network Vector Tree Bayes
Machine
PCA 85.67% 86.23% 74.23% 87.42%
ICA 99.28% 88.82% 99.23% 91.78%
FA 100.00% 100.00% 99.17% 100.00%
PCA + ICA 99.40% 95.00% 99.17% 98.12%

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 2018 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Feb. 2-3, Mumbai, India

Table II: Average execution time

Neural Support Decision Naive
Network Vector Tree Bayes
Machine
PCA 5.38 0.13 0.22 0.04
ICA 6.12 0.13 0.38 0.04
FA 4.41 0.18 0.26 0.08
PCA + ICA 5.75 0.15 0.40 0.06

Table III: Dataset summary

Type/ Characteristic Number of Instances
Male 30
Female 10
Beard 6
Mustache 6 Fig 3: Comparison of classifiers with PCA features
Spectacles 1

Execution time was also noted for the analysis of various

techniques. It has been observed that Neural Network takes
maximum time for execution which increases with increase in
the hidden units in the architecture. Average execution time
for Neural Network with three hidden layers of 150 units each
is 5.41 sec. Naive Bayes classifier takes the least execution
time with an average execution time of 0.055 sec. Decision
tree and Support Vector Machine takes 0.31 and 0.15 sec
respectively to execute completely on an average Table II.
Even though Factor Analysis has the best performance in
terms of accuracy, it is the slowest among the other techniques Fig 4: Comparison of classifiers with ICA features
used except Neural Network. But the difference being very
small does not affect the overall effective performance.

Other metrics viz. Precision, Recall and F-Score have been

measured over the dataset. The line graph in Figure 2 shows
the plot of these metrics against all the combinations of feature
extraction techniques and classifiers. It can be observed that
PCA fares relatively poor in terms of these metrics. ICA and
FA shows good results. When one component of ICA is used
along with two PCA components, the performance improves
drastically. Among the classifiers, decision tree fares the
worst. Other classifiers have an almost same performance.
High precision shows the algorithm miss-classifies only a few
in the respective classes. Fig 5: Comparison of classifiers with FA features

Observations have been made on individual images, thus

analyzing which individual’s image is classified incorrectly.
The dataset used contains different type of individuals as
summarized in Table III.

Fig 6: Comparison of classifiers with PCA and ICA features

978-1-5386-2051-9/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

 2018 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Feb. 2-3, Mumbai, India

The histograms in Figures 2 to 5 show the frequency of

incorrect classification of images of each individual when
used with different dimensionality reduction techniques.
Histograms in Figures 6 to 9 show the frequency of incorrect
classification of each individual when used with different
classifiers. In ORL dataset candidates are labeled from 0 to 39,
same labeling is used to calculate error frequency. Following
observations can be made from these histograms,
1. Image 0 in the ORL dataset has the highest
misclassification irrespective of the combination of
feature space and classifiers. Factor Analysis has
correctly classified all images except image 0.
Fig 7: Comparison of feature extraction techniques with Neural Networks 2. Images labeled as 30 and above in the ORL dataset
also have high frequency of misclassification. These
images include mostly individuals wearing
spectacles.
3. People having beard and/or moustache have less
frequency of misclassification. This indicates that
change in facial features does not have any impact on
the classification.
4. Men and women both have been classified correctly
in most of the cases. This indicates that gender has
insignificant impact on classification.

Fig 8: Comparison of feature extraction techniques with SVM

IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, images of various individuals have been used for
face recognition. PCA, ICA and FA were used to extract
features from the images. These features were tested against
four classifiers for recognizing the identity of the individuals.
After carefully carrying out experiments this paper leads to a
number of conclusions;
• We have observed that Factor Analysis has highest
accuracy on ORL database among the other
dimensionality reduction techniques. Factor Analysis
works best irrespective of the classifier used.
• Although, the Principal Component Analysis is
Fig 9: Comparison of feature extraction techniques with Decision Tree outperformed by Independent Component Analysis as
reported in literature, however the combination of
Principal Component Analysis and Independent
Component Analysis is more sensitive to variation in
facial-expression and orientation .This makes better
distinction among individuals than Principal
Component Analysis and Independent Component
Analysis when used independently.
• Neural Network leads the classifiers in terms of
accuracy but has the highest execution time with all
dimensionality reduction techniques.
• Naïve Bayes can be considered as an optimal
classifier in terms of accuracy and execution time
both.
Fig 10: Comparison of feature extraction techniques with Gaussian Naïve
Bayes

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 2018 International Conference on Communication, Information & Computing Technology (ICCICT), Feb. 2-3, Mumbai, India

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