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International Workshop on Biologically Motivated Computer Vision

BMCV 2002: Biologically Motivated Computer Vision pp 472–479Cite as

Attentional Selection for Object Recognition — A Gentle Way

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2525))

Abstract

Attentional selection of an object for recognition is often modeled using all-or-nothing switching of neuronal connection pathway from the attended region of the retinal input to the recognition units. However, there is little physiological evidence for such all-or-none modulation in early areas. We present a combined model for spatial attention and object recognition in which the recognition system monitors the entire visual field, but attentional modulation by as little as 20% at a high level is sufficient to recognize multiple objects. To determine the size and shape of the region to be modulated, a rough segmentation is performed, based on pre-attentive features already computed to guide attention. Testing with synthetic and natural stimuli demonstrates that our new approach to attentional selection for recognition yields encouraging results in addition to being biologically plausible.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, Mail Code 139-74, 91125, Pasadena, California, USA

    Dirk Walther & Christof Koch

  2. Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, 90089, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Laurent Itti

  3. Center for Biological and Computational Learning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Maximilian Riesenhuber & Tomaso Poggio

Authors
  1. Dirk Walther
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  2. Laurent Itti
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  3. Maximilian Riesenhuber
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  4. Tomaso Poggio
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  5. Christof Koch
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstraße 38, 72076, Tübingen, Germany

    Heinrich H. Bülthoff  & Christian Wallraven  & 

  2. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Korea University, Anam-dong, Seongbuk-ku, 136-701, Seoul, Korea

    Seong-Whan Lee

  3. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 45 Carleton Street, 02142, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Tomaso A. Poggio

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Walther, D., Itti, L., Riesenhuber, M., Poggio, T., Koch, C. (2002). Attentional Selection for Object Recognition — A Gentle Way. In: Bülthoff, H.H., Wallraven, C., Lee, SW., Poggio, T.A. (eds) Biologically Motivated Computer Vision. BMCV 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2525. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36181-2_47

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36181-2_47

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00174-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36181-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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