CAREER: A Computational Investigation into Biological Motion Perception

职业：生物运动感知的计算研究该奖项由2009年美国复苏和再投资法案(公法111-5)资助。在日常活动中，从以正确的轨迹跑步以避免撞到其他行人，根据朋友的走路方式从远处辨认朋友，到在健身房与合作伙伴练习拳击，动作感知在解读其他人的意图和与世界互动方面发挥着关键作用。尽管动作知觉很重要，但我们对三个基本计算问题的理解仍然存在重大差距：(1)人类观察者如何有效地处理视觉信息，以在不同的背景下做出动作识别；(2)人类如何学习和表征动作类别，如行走、拳击和舞蹈；以及(3)人类如何通过感知和推理获得理解社会互动的能力。在NSF职业奖的支持下，陆宏景博士将把计算机建模方法与行为实验相结合，以回答上述三个问题。这项研究将更好地理解视觉信息是如何被用来在不同的加工水平上实现对人类行为的明显轻松识别。这项工作将极大地扩展传统的计算方法，以便使它们适用于比以前应用它们的视觉过程更复杂的研究。理解行动知觉的计算基础对于科学地解释我们理解外部世界和进行社会互动的能力是至关重要的。此外，了解人类视觉系统如何感知行为将指导人工视觉系统的发展，以识别和解释复杂的生物运动。这项研究将改进一系列应用，包括动作可视化(例如，确定哪些视觉信息在3D动画中是重要的或可以忽略的)、安全监控系统(例如，检测和识别机场或火车站的可疑行为)、机器人(例如，机器与人有效互动的能力)、盲人辅助系统和驾驶员辅助系统(例如，驾驶员倒车时的盲点检测系统)。此外，将研究和教育活动纳入该项目将为学生提供跨学科研究的培训机会，包括心理学、统计学、计算机科学和数学。加州大学洛杉矶分校心理学系将设立一个新的计算认知博士专业。将在心理学的研究生和本科生层面上促进数学培训；同时，将向具有数学和计算机科学背景的学生介绍实验研究培训。

CAREER: A Computational Investigation into Biological Motion PerceptionHongjing Lu, Principal InvestigatorThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).In everyday activities ranging from running in a proper trajectory to avoid hitting other pedestrians, recognizing a friend based upon his walking style from a far distance, to practicing boxing with a partner in the gym, action perception plays a critical role in interpreting the intentions of other people and interacting with the world. Despite the importance of action perception, there are major gaps in our understanding of three basic computational issues: (1) how efficiently human observers can process visual information to make action identifications in different contexts; (2) how humans learn and represent action categories, such as walking, boxing, and dancing; and (3) how humans acquire the ability to understand social interactions by bridging perception and reasoning. With the support of an NSF CAREER award, Dr. Hongjing Lu will integrate computer modeling approaches with behavioral experiments to answer the above three questions. This research will develop greater understanding of how visual information is used to achieve apparently effortless recognition of human actions at different processing levels. The work will significantly extend conventional computational approaches in order to render them applicable to the study of visual processes more complex than those to which they have previously been applied. Understanding the computational basis of action perception is essential to achieving a scientific account of our ability to understand the external world and to conduct social interactions. Furthermore, understanding how the human visual system perceives actions will guide development of artificial vision systems to recognize and interpret complex biological movements. This research will improve a range of applications, including action visualization (e.g., deciding what visual information is important or could be ignored in 3D animation), security surveillance systems (e.g., detection and recognition of suspicious actions in airports or train stations), robotics (e.g., the ability of machines to interact effectively with people), blind assistance system and driver assistance systems (e.g., blind spot detection systems for drivers when backing the car). In addition, the integration of research and education activities in the project will provide students with training opportunities in interdisciplinary research, encompassing psychology, statistics, computer science and mathematics. A new Ph.D. Major in Computational Cognition will be established in the Psychology Department at UCLA. Mathematical training will be promoted at both the graduate and undergraduate levels in Psychology; at the same time, training in experimental research will be introduced to students with mathematical and computer science backgrounds.