The measurement of meaning

Many current neurophysiological, psychophysical, and psychological approaches to vision rest on the idea that when we see, the brain produces an internal representation of the world. The activation of this internal representation is assumed to give rise to the experience of seeing. The problem with this kind of approach is that it leaves unexplained how the existence of such a detailed internal representation might produce visual consciousness. An alternative proposal is made here. We propose that seeing is a way of acting. It is a particular way of exploring the environment. Activity in internal representations does not generate the experience of seeing. The outside world serves as its own, external, representation. The experience of seeing occurs when the organism masters what we call the governing laws of sensorimotor contingency. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a natural and principled way of accounting for visual consciousness, and for the differences in the perceived quality of sensory experience in the different sensory modalities. Several lines of empirical evidence are brought forward in support of the theory, in particular: evidence from experiments in sensorimotor adaptation, visual \"filling in,\" visual stability despite eye movements, change blindness, sensory substitution, and color perception.

A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness-Authors' Response-Acting out our sensory experience

MUCKE aims to mine a large volume of images, to structure them conceptually and to use this conceptual structuring in order to improve large-scale image retrieval. The last decade witnessed important progress concerning low-level image representations. However, there are a number problems which need to be solved in order to unleash the full potential of image mining in applications. The central problem with low-level representations is the mismatch between them and the human interpretation of image content. This problem can be instantiated, for instance, by the incapability of existing descriptors to capture spatial relationships between the concepts represented or by their incapability to convey an explanation of why two images are similar in a content-based image retrieval framework. We start by assessing existing local descriptors for image classification and by proposing to use co-occurrence matrices to better capture spatial relationships in images. The main focus in MUCKE is on cleaning large scale Web image corpora and on proposing image representations which are closer to the human interpretation of images. Consequently, we introduce methods which tackle these two problems and compare results to state of the art methods. Note: some aspects of this deliverable are withheld at this time as they are pending review. Please contact the authors for a preview.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel2/4524/12820/00592460.pdf

Image Processing

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence

This paper presents a new reflectance model for rendering computer synthesized images. The model accounts for the relative brightness of different materials and light sources in the same scene. It describes the directional distribution of the reflected light and a color shift that occurs as the reflectance changes with incidence angle. The paper presents a method for obtaining the spectral energy distribution of the light reflected from an object made of a specific real material and discusses a procedure for accurately reproducing the color associated with the spectral energy distribution. The model is applied to the simulation of a metal and a plastic.

A reflectance model for computer graphics

Response priming is a well-understood but sparsely employed paradigm in cognitive science. The method is powerful and well-suited for exploring early visuomotor processing in a wide range of tasks and research fields. Moreover, response priming can be dissociated from visual awareness, possibly because it is based on the first sweep of feedforward processing of primes and targets. This makes it a theoretically interesting device for separating conscious and unconscious vision. We discuss the major opportunities of the paradigm and give specific recommendations (e.g., tracing the time-course of priming in parametric experiments). Also, we point out typical confounds, design flaws, and data processing artifacts.

http://www.ac-psych.org/index.php/en/download-pdf/page/6/volume/7/issue/2/id/93

Dos and don'ts in response priming research.

Nonrigid materials, such as jelly, rubber, or sponge move and deform in distinctive ways depending on their stiffness. Which cues do we use to infer stiffness? We simulated cubes of varying stiffness and optical appearance (e.g., wood, metal, wax, jelly) being subjected to two kinds of deformation: (a) a rigid cylinder pushing downwards into the cube to various extents (shape change, but little motion: shape dominant), (b) a rigid cylinder retracting rapidly from the cube (same initial shapes, differences in motion: motion dominant). Observers rated the apparent softness/hardness of the cubes. In the shape-dominant condition, ratings mainly depended on how deeply the rod penetrated the cube and were almost unaffected by the cube's intrinsic physical properties. In contrast, in the motion-dominant condition, ratings varied systematically with the cube's intrinsic stiffness, and were less influenced by the extent of the perturbation. We find that both results are well predicted by the absolute magnitude of deformation, suggesting that when asked to judge stiffness, observers resort to simple heuristics based on the amount of deformation. Softness ratings for static, unperturbed cubes varied substantially and systematically depending on the optical properties. However, when animated, the ratings were again dominated by the extent of the deformation, and the effect of optical appearance was negligible. Together, our results suggest that to estimate stiffness, the visual system strongly relies on measures of the extent to which an object changes shape in response to forces.

Shape, motion, and optical cues to stiffness of elastic objects.

Visually inferring the stiffness of objects is important for many tasks but is challenging because, unlike optical properties (e.g., gloss), mechanical properties do not directly affect image values. Stiffness must be inferred either (a) by recognizing materials and recalling their properties (associative approach) or (b) from shape and motion cues when the material is deformed (estimation approach). Here, we investigated interactions between these two inference types. Participants viewed renderings of unfamiliar shapes with 28 materials (e.g., nickel, wax, cork). In Experiment 1, they viewed nondeformed, static versions of the objects and rated 11 material attributes (e.g., soft, fragile, heavy). The results confirm that the optical materials elicited a wide range of apparent properties. In Experiment 2, using a blue plastic material with intermediate apparent softness, the objects were subjected to physical simulations of 12 shape-transforming processes (e.g., twisting, crushing, stretching). Participants rated softness and extent of deformation. Both correlated with the physical magnitude of deformation. Experiment 3 combined variations in optical cues with shape cues. We find that optical cues completely dominate. Experiment 4 included the entire motion sequence of the deformation, yielding significant contributions of optical as well as motion cues. Our findings suggest participants integrate shape, motion, and optical cues to infer stiffness, with optical cues playing a major role for our range of stimuli.

Inferring the stiffness of unfamiliar objects from optical, shape, and motion cues

The DIsgust-RelaTed-Images (DIRTI) database: Validation of a novel standardized set of disgust pictures

Natural images can be classified so rapidly that it has been suggested that their analysis is based on a first single pass of processing activity through the visuomotor system We tested this theory in a visuomotor priming task in which speeded pointing responses were performed toward one of two target images containing a prespecified stimulus (eg, animal vs nonanimal, ellipse vs rectangle) Target pictures were preceded by prime pictures of the same or an opposite category, linked to either the same or an opposite pointing response We found that pointing trajectories were initially controlled by the primes alone, but independently of information in the actual targets Our data indicate that prime and target signals remained strictly sequential throughout all processing stages, meeting unprecedentedly stringent behavioral criteria for feedforward processing (rapid-chase criteria) Our findings suggest that visuomotor priming effects capture the output of the very first pass of information through the visuomotor system, before output is affected by recurrent information

/pdf/processing-of-natural-images-is-feedforward-a-simple-22ju4whft2.pdf

Filipp Schmidt

Papers

Dos and don'ts in response priming research.

Shape, motion, and optical cues to stiffness of elastic objects.

Inferring the stiffness of unfamiliar objects from optical, shape, and motion cues

The DIsgust-RelaTed-Images (DIRTI) database: Validation of a novel standardized set of disgust pictures

Processing of natural images is feedforward: a simple behavioral test.