README.md

---
pretty_name: Cardiff Conversation Database (CCDb+/CCDb)
extra_gated_prompt: You need to first download and complete this [End User Licence Agreement form (EULA)](https://rosinpl.github.io/CCDb-EULA.pdf), and return the signed EULA by email to [ccdb@cs.cardiff.ac.uk](mailto:ccdb@cs.cardiff.ac.uk).
---

# Dataset Card for Cardiff Conversation Database (CCDb+/CCDb)

![](https://rosinpl.github.io/CCDb.jpg)

<!-- Provide a quick summary of the dataset. -->

The Cardiff Conversation Database (CCDb) provides a non-scripted, audio-visual natural conversation database where neither participant's role is predefined (i.e. speaker/listener). This database will be a useful resource for the computer vision, affective computing, and cognitive science communities to both analyse natural dyadic conversational data and develop conversation models.

Although the project captured both 2D and 3D data, only the 2D data is provided here.


<span style="color:red">

## Gaining Access to Dataset

You need to first download and complete this [End User Licence Agreement form (EULA)](https://rosinpl.github.io/CCDb-EULA.pdf), and return the signed EULA.
<!--by email to [ccdb@cs.cardiff.ac.uk](mailto:ccdb@cs.cardiff.ac.uk).-->
</span>

## Dataset Structure

<!-- This section provides a description of the dataset fields, and additional information about the dataset structure such as criteria used to create the splits, relationships between data points, etc. -->

```
CCDb+
This includes the originally released CCDb conversions and many more 2013 conversations which have now been annotated.
A few of the earlier annotations have been corrected and a few conversation files renamed for consistency.

CCDb [the original release that is effectively replaced by CCDb+]
This includes both the 2013 and 2015 data captures plus the annotations that were released following the respective papers:
- CCDb-2013: Data captured in 2013, and annotated in 2013; used in Aubrey et al. 2013.
- CCDb-2015: Data captured in 2015, and annotated in 2015; used in Vandeventer et al. 2015.
```

The dataset consists of **mp4** video files and **eaf** ELAN annotation files.
The naming convention for the files is: P1_P2_0304 indicates that the conversation is between speakers with anonymised ID 1 and 2.
Separate recordings/annotations were made for the two halves of the conversation: P1_P2_0304_C1 contains data from camera 1, P1_P2_0304_C2 contains data from camera 2.

## Dataset Creation

The database currently consists of 44 conversations between pairs of speakers, each lasting approximately five minutes. 
There were 22 speakers in total, 15 male and 7 female aged 8 to 56 (hence, some speakers were paired multiple times with different conversational partners).

Some conversations have annotations for facial expressions, verbal and non-verbal utterances, and transcribed speech. 

## Data acquisition

Two 3dMD dynamic scanners captured 3D video, a Basler A312fc firewire CCD camera captured 2D colour video at standard video frame rate,
and a microphone placed in front of the participant, out of view of the camera, captured sound (at 44.1KHz).

To ensure all audio and video could be reliably synchronized, each speaker had a handheld buzzer and LED (light emitting diode) device,
used to mark the beginning of each recording session.
A single button controlled both devices and simultaneously activated the buzzer and LED.
No equipment was altered between the recording sessions,
except for the height of the chair to ensure the speaker's head was clearly visible by the cameras.

### Dataset Funding

CCDb was created as part of a research project 'Actions and Events in Images and Videos' in the Welsh Government funded Research Institute of Visual Computing (RIVIC),
which was a collaborative amalgamation of research programmes between the computer science.
A large part of the latter annotation process was funded by the School of Computer Science & Informatics, Cardiff University.

## Citation

<!-- If there is a paper or blog post introducing the dataset, the APA and Bibtex information for that should go in this section. -->

**BibTeX:**

```
@inproceedings{aubrey2013cardiff,
  title={Cardiff Conversation Database (CCDb): A database of natural dyadic conversations},
  author={Aubrey, Andrew J and Marshall, David and Rosin, Paul L and Vendeventer, Jason and Cunningham, Douglas W and Wallraven, Christian},
  booktitle={Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops},
  pages={277--282},
  year={2013}
}

@inproceedings{VandeventerARM15,
  title={4D Cardiff Conversation Database (4D CCDb): A 4D database of natural, dyadic conversations},
  author={Vandeventer, Jason and Aubrey, Andrew J and Rosin, Paul L and Marshall, David},
  booktitle = {Joint Conf. on Facial Analysis, Animation and Auditory-Visual Speech Processing},
  pages = {157-162},
  year = {2015}
}

@article{deng2025ccdb+,
  title={CCDb+: Enhanced Annotations and Multi-Modal Benchmark for Natural Dyadic Conversations},
  author={Deng, Yang and Lai, Yukun and Rosin, Paul L},
  booktitle={Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Multimedia},
  pages={5657-5666}
  year={2025}
}
```

## Additional Annotations of CCDb

## CCDb Head Gesture (CCDb-HG)
- [https://zenodo.org/records/13927536](https://zenodo.org/records/13927536)
- CCDb-HG contains annotations for each frame with 6 head gestures: Nod, Shake, Tilt, Turn, Up/Down, and Waggle.
- P. Vuillecard, A. Farkhondeh, M. Villamizar and J. -M. Odobez, "CCDb-HG: Novel Annotations and Gaze-Aware Representations for Head Gesture Recognition", International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG), pp. 1-9, 2024.

## Interaction Behavior Database
- [https://zenodo.org/records/3820510](https://zenodo.org/records/3820510)
- Contains annotation segments smiles and laughs as well as their intensties, expressed by interlocutors in conversational contexts.
They also contain annotation segments of the interlocutors' roles (speaker, listener or none) during their conversations.
- El Haddad, Kevin, Sandeep Nallan Chakravarthula, and James Kennedy, "Smile and Laugh Dynamics in Naturalistic Dyadic Interactions: Intensity Levels, Sequences and Roles", International Conference on Multimodal Interaction, 2019.

## Dataset Card Contact

Paul Rosin\
Cardiff University\
[rosinpl@cardiff.ac.uk](mailto:rosinpl@cardiff.ac.uk)