Perception and Action: Ideal Observers and Actors

描述(申请人提供)：生物视觉系统利用许多不同的信息来源(“线索”)进行视觉判断。例如，对于深度和形状估计，包括遮挡、纹理、透视、运动视差、视差、阴影和轮廓。这些线索的组合基于各个线索的相对可靠性，但在通过填充一个或多个所需参数(例如，深度和倾斜估计的注视距离和方位)将线索提升到相称的尺度之前，不可能发生这些线索的组合。这些参数也是使用多个线索(例如，观察几何图形的视网膜和动眼线索)来估计的。我们提出了理想行为的统计决策理论模型，用于场景属性的视觉估计和运动规划。理想的观察者或行为者必须考虑到与不同结果相关的测量不确定性，以及关于当前世界状况的先验信息。我们提出的实验旨在阐明人类观察者如何促进和组合视觉和行动的视觉控制线索。使用的实验方法是基于微扰分析，它允许检查一个可能对刺激中的扭曲和不一致做出反应的系统。拟议的研究包括三个主要任务。(1)我们将分析与理想贝叶斯决策者的预测相关的观察者行为，这些决策者在知觉决策、达成和掌握任务中面临相同程度的不确定性。(2)我们将参照理想行为，考察线索组合在线索提升服务中的作用。(3)我们将继续研究空间内插性能，以便更好地了解底层模型的一些方面，如先验分布，以及观察者使用的统计稳健性方法(在此背景下，这与场景分割问题密切相关)。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Biological visual systems make use of many different sources of information ("cues") for visual judgments. For depth and shape estimation, for example, these include occlusion, texture, perspective, motion parallax, disparity, shading and contour. The combination of these cues is based on the relative reliabilities of the individual cues, but cannot occur until cues are promoted to a commensurate scale by filling in one or more needed parameters (e.g., the fixation distance and azimuth for depth and slant estimates). These parameters are also estimated using multiple cues (e.g., both retinal and oculomotor cues for the viewing geometry). We propose statistical decision theoretic models for ideal behavior in the visual estimation of scene properties and for movement planning. The ideal observer or actor must take into account measurement uncertainty, associated with different outcomes, and prior information about the current state of the world. We propose experiments intended to clarify how human observers promote and combine cues for vision and for the visual control of action. The experimental methods used are based on perturbation analysis which permits examination of a system that can potentially react to distortions and inconsistencies in the stimuli. The proposed research consists of three major tasks. (1) We will analyze observer behavior relative to predictions of ideal Bayesian decision makers confronted by the same levels of uncertainty in tasks of perceptual decision, reaching and grasping. (2) We will examine cue combination in the service of cue promotion, again with reference to ideal behavior. (3) We will continue our studies of spatial interpolation performance so as to better understand such aspects of the underlying model as the prior distribution, and the methods used by the observer to be statistically robust (which, in this context, is closely related to the scene segmentation problem).