Role of linking parameters in Pulse-Coupled Neural Network for face detection

In this work, we have investigated a role of linking parameter in Pulse-Coupled Neural Network(PCNN) which is suggested to explain the synchronous activities among neurons in the cat cortex. Then we have found a method to determine the linking parameter for a satisfactory face detection performance in a given color image. Face detection algorithm which uses the color information is independent on pose, size and obstruction of a face. But the use of color information encounters some problems arising from skin-tone color in the background, intensity variation within faces, and presence of random noise and so on. Depending on these conditions, PCNN's linking parameters should be selected an appropriate values. First we obtained the mean and variance of the skin-tone colors by experiments. Then, we introduced a preprocess that the pixel with a mean value of skin-tone colors has the highest level value (255) and the other pixels have values between 0 and 255 according to normal distribution with a variance. This preprocessing leads to an easy decision of the linking parameter of the Pulse-Coupled Neural Network. Through experiments, it is verified that the proposed method can improve the face detection performance compared to the existing methods.