Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!cernvax!chx400!chx400!ugun2b!cui!pun
From: pun@cui.unige.ch (PUN Thierry)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: PERCEPTION (was: Turing test, psychographics, ..)
Message-ID: <4996@cui.unige.ch>
Date: 21 Feb 91 09:28:57 GMT
Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland
Lines: 50

Hello

All this discussion about Turing test photo, psychographics or subjective
graphics, etc. basically relates to "psychological" perception. There is
great interest in the computer vision community for perceptual studies. 
While ten years ago the emphasis was on neurophysiology, that is the 
physiological support of human vision (Marr, computational theory of 
vision), the interest towards psychological studies is ever increasing.

This is not surprising considering the progress made in all image sciences.
At the beginning, algorithms were simple (eg. contours extraction in the
case of computer vision), and a physiological equivalent was known to exist
(Huebel and Wiesel). The fact that the problem was really tough started to 
be acknowledged later, when the lack of success of computer vision systems 
became clear. Psychologists working on perception were facing similar 
difficulties: what are the various functiunalities in the visual system, 
how do they interact? Research groups working in computer vision more and 
more collaborate with researchers working in "psychological" perception.

Why discussing computer vision in this news group? Because it looks that
various imaging branches are converging: people in image synthesis are
using theories from image analysis, and conversely. There is an increasing
commonality of interest between computer graphics and computer vision.
A subject which seems of particular (and fundamental) importance is
certainly perception.

As a particular exemple, one of the problem we are working on is how a 
focus of attention is selected, ie. why and how one looks first at some 
particular points in a scene. Clearly, such a topic is interesting for a 
computer vision system. Our feeling is that it is also of interest for 
image synthesis: which will be the part in a synthetized picture that will 
be scrutinized first?

More generally, it would be very interesting to start a discussion on
how perceptual studies can be relevant to imaging sciences. This concerns
computer graphics as well as computer vision. The Eurographics Working
Group on the Relations between image analysis and image synthesis intends
focusing on issues of perception and it is open to interested researchers.
If there is enough interest, a mailing list could be started for exchanging
information. Interested people should contact one of the two persons
mentionned below.


Thierry Pun, Computer Vision Group          Edwin Blake, Dpt. of Interactive
Computing Science Center, U-Geneva          Systems,
12, rue du Lac, CH-1207 Geneva              CWI - Centre for Math. and C.Sc.
SWITZERLAND				    Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam
Phone : +41(22) 787 65 82; fax: 735 39 05   THE NETHERLANDS
E-mail: pun@cui.unige.ch		    Phone: +31 (20) 592 4009
					    E-mail: edwin@cwi.nl


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