Recognition of natural scenes from global properties: seeing the forest without representing the trees.

ABSTRACT: Human observers are able to rapidly and accurately categorize natural scenes, but the representation mediating this feat is still unknown. Here we propose a framework of rapid scene categorization that does not segment a scene into objects and instead uses a vocabulary of global, ecological properties that describe spatial and functional aspects of scene space (such as navigability or mean depth). In Experiment 1, we obtained ground truth rankings on global properties for use in Experiments 2-4. To what extent do human observers use global property information when rapidly categorizing natural scenes? In Experiment 2, we found that global property resemblance was a strong predictor of both false alarm rates and reaction times in a rapid scene categorization experiment. To what extent is gl

SUBMITTER: Greene MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2759758 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature