Human Visual Experience Research Articles

Quantifying the difficulty of object recognition tasks via scaling of accuracy vs. training set size

Quantifying the difficulty of object recognition tasks via scaling of accuracy vs. training set size

What Horses and Humans See: A Comparative Review

Adaptations of the mammalian eye have tailored each to its own particular ecological niche. On the one hand, it would appear that the horse is best served by a system that can keep “half an eye” on everything, while the human benefits from focussing on more specific aspects of the visual array. By adapting a range of techniques, originally used to assess human visual ability, it has been possible to compare the human visual experience with that of the horse. In general, the results of the majority of these comparative studies indicate that the visual capabilities of the horse are broadly inferior to the human equivalents in acuity, accommodation, and colour vision. However, both the horse and human abilities to judge distance and depth perception may be quite comparable while equine vision is certainly superior to that of human's under scotopic conditions. Individual variation in visual ability, which is routinely taken for granted in humans, is also likely to occur in the horse. Such variation would undoubtedly affect equine performance, particularly in terms of expectation of athletic competitive outcomes in modern equitation. In addition to such considerations as conformation and athletic ability, a detailed assessment of the visual ability might contribute to a more accurate prediction of future performance characteristics in the horse. Although further investigation is required in order to appreciate fully both the capabilities and limitations of the equine visual system, the information currently available should now be considered and applied more rigorously both in the design of the equine environment and in the implementation of contemporary equine training methods. This need is the greatest in areas of equestrian sport where the outcomes of either or both equine and human visual judgements can be critical, the cost of failure often high and occasionally results in fatal consequences for both parties of the horse-human dyad.

An evaluation model for character quality on scanned image

Scanners, standalone or embedded in MFP, have been widely utilized for document scanning/copying in office environments. There are many factors affecting the quality of scanned image. They include quality of characters, size of gamut, degree of noises, color reproduction, tone characteristics, and gray balance, etc. This paper is focused on quantitative evaluation of character quality on scanned images. Objective of this paper is to derive a quantitative evaluation model that faithfully matches with the human perception. Key attributes determining character quality are extracted first based on subjective human visual experiments. For each of the identified attributes, a quantitative metric is developed. The proposed evaluation model is designed as a linear combination of the quantified metrics. Coefficients for linear combination are estimated by applying linear regression. Various experiments are performed to verify the performance of the proposed evaluation model.

Distortion variation minimization in real-time video coding

In this paper, we review the rate distortion tradeoff issues in real-time video coding and introduce a minimum variation (MINVAR) distortion criterion based approach. The MINVAR based rate distortion tradeoff framework provides a local optimization strategy as a rate control mechanism in real-time video coding applications by minimizing the distortion variation while the corresponding bit rate fluctuation is limited by utilizing the encoder buffer. The proposed approach aims to achieve a smooth decoded picture quality for pleasing human visual experience. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated with H.264. The experimental results demonstrate that using the proposed approach, the decoded picture quality is smoother than the traditional H.264 joint model (JM) rate control without sacrificing global quality such that a better subjective visual quality is guaranteed.

Merleau-Ponty's doubt: Cézanne and the problem of artistic biography

‘Cézanne's Doubt,’ the essay of phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, is the philosophical wellspring of Cézanne interpretation, the first and most penetrating study of the deep perceptual signilicance of the artist's paintings. Art historians today regularly speak of Cézanne in terms that Merleau-Ponty first made explicit: the primordial quality of the artist's vision, his attempt to get to the core truths of perceptual experience, his quest for the ‘lived perspective’ which precedes the traditions and systems of academic painting. The essay, along with Merleau-Ponty's later work on Cézanne's phenomenology, ‘Eye and Mind,’ has figured in almost every subsequent account we have of the artist; and it has served also as a concise illustration of the tenets of Merleau-Ponty's own philosophy, as a persuasive instance of his arguments about the nature of human visual experience.

Visual Biology of Hawaiian Coral Reef Fishes. II. Colors of Hawaiian Coral Reef Fish

The colors of 51 species of Hawaiian reef fish have been measured using a spectrometer and therefore can be described in objective terms that are not influenced by the human visual experience. In common with other known reef fish populations, the colors of Hawaiian reef fish occupy spectral positions from 300–800nm; yellow or orange with blue, yellow with black, and black with white are the most frequently combined colors; and there is no link between possession of ultraviolet (UV) reflectance and UV visual sensitivity or the potential for UV visual sensitivity. In contrast to other reef systems, blue, yellow, and orange appear more frequently in Hawaiian reef fish. Based on spectral quality of reflections from fish skin, trends in fish colors can be seen that are indicative of both visually driven selective pressures and chemical or physical constraints on the design of colors. UV-reflecting colors can function as semiprivate communication signals. White or yellow with black form highly contrasting patterns that transmit well through clear water. Labroid fishes display uniquely complex colors but lack the ability to see the UV component that is common in their pigments. Step-shaped spectral curves are usually long-wavelength colors such as yellow or red, and colors with a peak-shaped spectral curves are green, blue, violet, and UV.

Individualism, twin scenarios and visual content

In this paper I address an important question concerning the nature of visual content: are the contents of human visual states and experiences exhaustively fixed or determined (in the non-causal sense) by our intrinsic physical properties? The individualist answers this question affirmatively. I will argue that such an answer is mistaken. A common anti-individualist or externalist tactic is to attempt to construct a twin scenario involving humanoid duplicates who are embedded in environments that diverge in such a way that it appears to be necessary to attribute divergent contents to their respective visual states. In the first half of the paper I discuss some of the twin scenarios that are prominent in the literature and argue that they fail to undermine individualism. Indeed I argue that due to important facts about our internal workings, a convincing externalist twin scenario involving humanoid protagonists cannot be constructed. However, I argue that such a result does not conclusively establish an individualist thesis and that in order to settle the question at issue it is necessary to construct an independently motivated theory of visual content. I attempt to do this in the second half of the paper by developing a theory at the core of which is the idea that the contents of our visual states and experiences are determined by the causal powers vis-à-vis behaviour of their constituent features. I argue that this theory has externalist credentials.

Asymmetries in human accommodation and visual experience

Psychophysical and electrophysiological studies of animals and humans provide firm evidence that a meridional resolution deficit (meridional amblyopia), present in some astigmats. results from selective visual exposure. The link between orientational differences in acuity and visual experience suggests that similar inequalities might also be present in the accommodation system. Measurements of steadystate accommodative responses to targets containing contours of different orientations have been made on non-astigmatic and astigmatic subjects. The visual resolution of certain subjects has also been determined. Prominent differences are found in the results for the two groups. When resolution is superior for detail of a given orientation, that orientation tends to control accommodation. These results suggest that the pathways subserving accommodation are subject to experimental modification.

Criteria for Motion-Picture Viewing and for a New 70mm System: Its Process and Viewing Arrangements

Three kinds of motion-picture presentations are considered: (1) dramatic; (2) informational presentations for educational, technical, business and exhibit use; and (3) impact presentations for exhibits and expositions. An analysis of the psychophysical aspects of the human visual experience is evaluated for development of a new motion-picture viewing experience. Developmental and economic factors and potential audience capacity are discussed.