Mechanisms for the Perception of Surfaces and Materials

描述(申请人提供)：视觉为我们提供了关于我们周围世界物体的信息；它也允许我们看到它们的组成材料。物质感觉很重要：例如，它让人们看到人行道是否结冰，它允许医生判断鼹鼠看起来是否危险。目前，人们对物质知觉知之甚少。本项目将从理论和实证两个层面进行研究。这项研究将评估视觉分辨率等基本因素在做出实质性判断时的重要性。材料判断的范围可以从对外观的简单描述(例如，“这个表面有多亮？”)关于材料特性的更复杂的判断(例如，“这块地毯有多软？”这些答案将为物质知觉模型提供约束，也将有助于理解各种视觉缺陷对各种任务的影响。当在计算机显示器上查看材料而不是在真实世界中看到材料时，会出现视觉信息丢失。还有其他的损失是由于眼病造成的。通过衡量特定类型信息的影响，该项目将指明在对潜在的感知机制进行建模方面的最佳方向。这些机制也将通过其他方式进行研究。通过记录眼球运动，研究人员将了解受试者在做出实质性判断时所关注的局部图像特征。在其他实验中，基于类小波滤波器输出的特定特征将被评估为潜在有用的信息源。如果候选特征(例如，滤镜输出的偏斜度)对人类很重要，那么通过操纵该特征，应该可以以可预测的方式改变材料的外观。与公众健康相关这个项目将帮助确定材料感知的视觉机制，其中包括对视觉质量(如光泽度)的感知，以及更多物理属性(如潮湿或光滑)的感知。物质知觉具有广泛的重要性，当视力受损时(由于眼病或数码显示器的限制)，物质知觉就会退化。了解基本机制将有助于改善数字系统的视觉性能，例如用于远程医疗的系统；它还将有助于了解眼病对简单任务的影响，例如避免人行道上的冰块。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Vision provides us with information about the objects in the world around us; it also allows us to see the materials that they are made of. Material perception is important: for example, it lets people see whether a sidewalk is icy and it permits a physician to decide whether a mole looks dangerous. At present, very little is known about material perception. This project will study at both a theoretical and empirical level. The research will assess the importance of basic factors such as visual resolution in making material judgments. The material judgments can range from simple descriptions of appearance (e.g., "how shiny is this surface?") to more complex judgments about the material properties (e.g., "how soft is this carpet?") The answers will provide constraints for models of material perception, and will also help in understanding the impact that various visual deficits will have on a variety of tasks. There are losses in visual information that occur when materials are viewed on a computer monitor rather than seen in the real world. There are other losses that occur due to eye disease. By measuring the impact of specific kinds of information, the project will indicate the best directions to go in modeling the underlying perceptual mechanisms. Those mechanisms will also be studied in other ways. By recording eye movements, the researchers will learn the local image features that subjects fixate on when making material judgments. In other experiments, specific features based on the outputs of wavelet-like filters will be evaluated as potentially useful sources of information. If a candidate feature (e.g., the skewness of a filter output) is important to humans, then by manipulating this feature it should be possible to alter a material's appearance in predictable ways. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE This project will help determine the visual mechanisms underlying material perception, which includes the perception of visual qualities like glossiness and more physical qualities like wetness or slipperiness. Material perception is of widespread importance, and when vision is impaired (by eye disease, or by limitations in digital displays) material perception is degraded. Understanding the basic mechanisms will help improve the visual performance of digital systems such as those used in telemedicine; it will also help understand the impact that eye diseases have on simple tasks such as avoiding icy patches on the sidewalk.