Open the DIEM-A application form, which contains the full ULA. 2. Print, sign, scan, and upload the signed PDF through the form. 3. The User (signatory) must be a PI at an academic or publicly funded research institute, as per Section 3 of the ULA. 4. After RIEC reviews and approves your application, request access here using the same email address you provided in the form.
Use is restricted to non-commercial academic research (scientific research, teaching, classroom use). Redistribution is not permitted.
For more information, see the official DIEM-A website and the ACII 2025 paper.

DIEM-A: Diverse Intercultural E-Motion Database of Asian Performers

DIEM-A is a motion-capture database of emotional whole-body movements by Asian professional performers, collected at Tohoku University (Japan) and National Chung Cheng University (Taiwan). The dataset is described in the ACII 2025 paper Asian Emotional Body Movement Database: Diverse Intercultural E-Motion Database of Asian Performers (DIEM-A) (Cheng, Tseng, Fujiwara, Schneider, Kitamura).

Official project page: https://www.cr-ict.riec.tohoku.ac.jp/diem-a/

Overview

Performers: 92 professional performers — 49 Japanese, 43 Taiwanese.
Emotions: 12 emotion categories (joy, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, contempt, gratitude, guilt, jealousy, shame, pride) plus a neutral state.
Scenarios: 3 self-prepared, personalised scenarios per emotion, created by the performers in their native language (Japanese or Mandarin), with English translations by three bilingual experts.
Intensity levels: low, medium, high. Neutral was recorded at a single intensity.
Recordings per performer: 111 = (12 emotions × 3 scenarios × 3 intensities) + (neutral × 3 scenarios × 1 intensity).
Total recordings: 10,212.
Modalities: motion-capture data and scenario text descriptions. (Video recordings are part of DIEM-A but are not distributed via Hugging Face.)

Data formats

Recordings were captured using the Vicon "Production" marker set (57 retro-reflective markers). The reconstructed skeleton has 24 joints (Hips, Spine ×4, Neck ×2, Head, and 4 segments per limb × 4 limbs), with Z-axis up, Y-axis forward, X-axis from left to right shoulder.

Each recording is provided in three formats:

Format	Contents
`.bvh`	Skeleton (24 joints)
`.c3d`	57 marker positions
`.fbx`	Skeleton (24 joints) + 57 marker positions

Files are named following the convention Country_PerformerID_Emotion_ScenarioNumber_Intensity.

Note. Japanese performers 1–5 were recorded with an OptiTrack system rather than the Vicon system used for all other performers. They require additional pre-processing for consistency and will be released later.

License and access

Use of DIEM-A is governed by the DIEM-A User License Agreement (ULA). Key terms:

Academic, non-commercial use only — scientific research, teaching, and classroom use. Commercial systems, military applications, and government public-space systems are explicitly prohibited.
PI signature required — the User must be a PI at an academic or publicly funded research institute. Students and part-time lecturers may be listed as Additional Researchers under the PI.
No redistribution — except small portions used for clarification in academic publications or presentations.
Access is granted only after the signed ULA has been received by RIEC.

To request access, submit the application form: https://forms.gle/4GVB9PXkYZ9zoMPL6.

Citation

If you use any part of DIEM-A (motion capture data, scenario text data, or video recordings), please cite:

@inproceedings{cheng2025,
  title     = {Asian Emotional Body Movement Database: Diverse Intercultural E-Motion Database of Asian Performers (DIEM-A)},
  author    = {Cheng, Miao and Tseng, Chia-huei and Fujiwara, Ken and Schneider, Victor and Kitamura, Yoshifumi},
  booktitle = {2025 13th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII)},
  pages     = {1--8},
  year      = {2025},
  organization = {IEEE}
}

If you also use perception data from the preliminary evaluation, please additionally cite:

@article{cheng2024,
  title     = {Toward an Asian-based bodily movement database for emotional communication},
  author    = {Cheng, Miao and Tseng, Chia-huei and Fujiwara, Ken and Higashiyama, Shoi and Weng, Abby and Kitamura, Yoshifumi},
  journal   = {Behavior Research Methods},
  volume    = {57},
  number    = {1},
  pages     = {10},
  year      = {2024},
  publisher = {Springer}
}

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO [JPNP21004]). Ethical approval was granted by the Human Research Ethics Committees at Tohoku University and National Chung Cheng University.

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