Preattentive Visual Sensitivity

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People have an extraordinary ability to almost instantly characterize objects by their lightness and color. People have a corresponding ability to characterize surfaces and objects by their visual texture properties. In their NSF-funded research project, Charles Chubb and George Sperling at UC Irvine will use new experimental paradigms and new analytic methods (involving perturbation methods and dimensional analysis) to characterize humans' ability to perceive textures. These procedures have already enabled the investigators to isolate previously unknown texture-perception mechanisms. The current project now applies these procedures to the formal systematic description and characterization of the vast range of human texture-perception mechanisms with the goal of compiling a Table of the Elementary Dimensions of Visual Sensitivity, somewhat analogous to the Periodic Table of Elements.Understanding the elementary visual mechanisms that enable humans to accurately perceive their visual environment is of fundamental importance and ultimately is likely to have many useful applications. For example, the analysis of visual textures is carried out in the brain, so understanding these visual processes will enable a better characterization of brain injuries that interfere with these (previously unmeasured) processes. Knowing both the range and the limits of human perceptual processes will yield better understanding of what humans can and cannot perceive in images, such as medical X-rays, military camouflage, and computer displays. Indeed, simulating such human sensory abilities has been a critical element in the construction of successful robotic sensing systems.