Mechanisms for the Perception of Surfaces and Materials

描述（由申请人提供）：视觉为我们提供了关于我们周围世界的物体的信息;它还允许我们看到它们的材料。材料感知很重要：例如，它可以让人们看到人行道是否结冰，它可以让医生判断痣看起来是否危险。目前，人们对物质感知知之甚少。该项目将在理论和实证两个层面进行研究。这项研究将评估基本因素的重要性，如视觉分辨率在作出材料判断。材料判断的范围可以从简单的外观描述（例如，“这表面有多亮？“）到关于材料性质的更复杂的判断（例如，“这地毯有多软？这些答案将为材料感知模型提供限制，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的世界中看到材料时，会发生视觉信息的损失。还有其他损失是由于眼睛疾病。通过测量特定类型信息的影响，该项目将指出建模潜在感知机制的最佳方向。还将以其他方式研究这些机制。通过记录眼球运动，研究人员将了解受试者在做出材料判断时所关注的局部图像特征。在其他实验中，基于小波滤波器输出的特定特征将被评估为潜在有用的信息来源。如果候选特征（例如，过滤器输出的偏斜度）对人类来说很重要，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。公共卫生相关性本项目将有助于确定材料感知的视觉机制，包括对光泽度等视觉质量和潮湿或光滑等物理质量的感知。材料感知具有广泛的重要性，并且当视力受损时（由于眼疾或由于数字显示器的限制），材料感知会退化。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疾对简单任务的影响，例如避免人行道上的结冰斑块。

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.