What and where : a Bayesian inference theory of visual attention

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chikkerur, Sharat S
Other Authors: Tomaso Poggio.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62387
_version_ 1826210084663853056
author Chikkerur, Sharat S
author2 Tomaso Poggio.
author_facet Tomaso Poggio.
Chikkerur, Sharat S
author_sort Chikkerur, Sharat S
collection MIT
description Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T14:42:18Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/62387
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
language eng
last_indexed 2024-09-23T14:42:18Z
publishDate 2011
publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/623872019-04-12T09:27:45Z What and where : a Bayesian inference theory of visual attention Chikkerur, Sharat S Tomaso Poggio. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 107-116). In the theoretical framework described in this thesis, attention is part of the inference process that solves the visual recognition problem of what is where. The theory proposes a computational role for attention and leads to a model that predicts some of its main properties at the level of psychophysics and physiology. In our approach, the main goal of the visual system is to infer the identity and the position of objects in visual scenes: spatial attention emerges as a strategy to reduce the uncertainty in shape information while feature-based attention reduces the uncertainty in spatial information. Featural and spatial attention represent two distinct modes of a computational process solving the problem of recognizing and localizing objects, especially in difficult recognition tasks such as in cluttered natural scenes. We describe a specific computational model and relate it to the known functional anatomy of attention. We show that several well-known attentional phenomena - including bottom-up pop-out effects, multiplicative modulation of neuronal tuning curves and shift in contrast responses - emerge naturally as predictions of the model. We also show that the bayesian model predicts well human eye fixations (considered as a proxy for shifts of attention) in natural scenes. Finally, we demonstrate that the same model, used to modulate information in an existing feedforward model of the ventral stream, improves its object recognition performance in clutter. by Sharat Chikkerur. Ph.D. 2011-04-25T15:51:01Z 2011-04-25T15:51:01Z 2010 2010 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62387 709778313 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 116 p. application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Chikkerur, Sharat S
What and where : a Bayesian inference theory of visual attention
title What and where : a Bayesian inference theory of visual attention
title_full What and where : a Bayesian inference theory of visual attention
title_fullStr What and where : a Bayesian inference theory of visual attention
title_full_unstemmed What and where : a Bayesian inference theory of visual attention
title_short What and where : a Bayesian inference theory of visual attention
title_sort what and where a bayesian inference theory of visual attention
topic Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62387
work_keys_str_mv AT chikkerursharats whatandwhereabayesianinferencetheoryofvisualattention