Rapid animal detection in natural scenes: Critical features are local

Abstract

Thorpe et al (Nature 381, 1996) first showed how rapidly human observers are able to classify natural images as to whether they contain an animal or not. Whilst the basic result has been replicated using different response paradigms (yes-no versus forced-choice), modalities (eye movements versus button presses) as well as while measuring neurophysiological correlates (ERPs), it is still unclear which image features support this rapid categorisation. Recently Torralba and Oliva (Network: Computation in Neural Systems, 14, 2003) suggested that simple global image statistics can be used to predict seemingly complex decisions about the absence and/or presence of objects in natural scences. They show that the information contained in a small number (N=16) of spectral principal components (SPC)—principal component analysis (PCA) applied to the normalised power spectra of the images—is sufficient to achieve approximately 80% correct animal detection in natural scenes.