Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41901995›Full record

ArticleSensors (Basel, Switzerland)2026

Deep-Learning-Derived Facial Electromyogram Signatures of Emotion in Immersive Virtual Reality (bWell): Exploring the Impact of Emotional, Cognitive, and Physical Demands.

Zohreh H Meybodi, Francis Thibault, Budhachandra Khundrakpam, Gino De Luca, Jing Zhang, Joshua A Granek, Nusrat Choudhury

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Zohreh H MeybodiMedical Devices Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, Boucherville, QC J4B 6Y4, Canada.
Francis ThibaultMedical Devices Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, Boucherville, QC J4B 6Y4, Canada.
Budhachandra KhundrakpamMedical Devices Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, Boucherville, QC J4B 6Y4, Canada.
Gino De LucaMedical Devices Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, Boucherville, QC J4B 6Y4, Canada.
Jing ZhangToronto Research Centre, Defence Research & Development Canada, Toronto, ON M3K 2C9, Canada.
Joshua A GranekToronto Research Centre, Defence Research & Development Canada, Toronto, ON M3K 2C9, Canada.ORCID 0000-0002-7361-5095
Nusrat ChoudhuryMedical Devices Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, Boucherville, QC J4B 6Y4, Canada.ORCID 0000-0003-3364-8594

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Emotional and workload-related states unfold dynamically during immersive virtual reality (VR) experiences, yet reliable physiological modeling in such environments remains challenging. We investigated whether multi-channel facial electromyography (fEMG), combined with spatio-temporal deep learning, can (i) accurately classify calibrated facial expressions across participants and (ii) transfer to spontaneous, task-elicited behavior in immersive VR. Twelve adults completed a calibration phase involving four intentional expressions (smile, frown, raised eyebrow, neutral), followed by VR scenes designed to elicit emotional, cognitive, physical, and dual task demands. After participant-level physiological normalization, a single shared Convolutional Neural Network-Temporal Convolutional Network (CNN-TCN) model was trained and evaluated using leave-one-participant-out (LOPO) validation. The model achieved strong cross-participant performance (Macro-F1 = 0.88 ± 0.13; ROC-AUC = 0.95 ± 0.06). When applied to unlabeled spontaneous VR task-elicited fEMG recordings, the trained model generated continuous expression classes. Derived static and temporal expression features showed scene-dependent modulation and False Discovery Rate (FDR)-surviving associations, primarily with perceived physical demand (NASA-TLX). The observed muscle activation patterns were physiologically plausible and aligned with Facial Action Coding System (FACS)-based interpretations of underlying muscle activity. These findings demonstrate that end-to-end spatio-temporal modeling of raw fEMG enables facial expression sensing in immersive VR using a single shared model following physiological normalization. The proposed framework bridges calibrated expression learning and spontaneous task-elicited behavior, supporting privacy-preserving, continuous and physiologically grounded monitoring in human-centered VR applications.

Indexed as

CognitionDeep LearningElectromyographyEmotionsVirtual RealityAdultConvolutional Neural NetworksFaceFacial ExpressionFemaleHumansMaleYoung Adultcognitive demandconvolutional neural networks (CNN)deep learning (DL)emotion recognitionfacial electromyographyfacial expression recognitionNASA task load index (NASA-TLX)temporal convolutional networks (TCN)virtual reality (VR)workload assessment

Identifiers

PMID41901995
PMCPMC13030317

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.