A motion sequence may be represented as a single pattern in x-y-t space; a velocity of motion corresponds to a three-dimensional orientation in this space. Motion sinformation can be extracted by a system that responds to the oriented spatiotemporal energy. We discuss a class of models for human motion mechanisms in which the first stage consists of linear filters that are oriented in space-time and tuned in spatial frequency. The outputs of quadrature pairs of such filters are squared and summed to give a measure of motion energy. These responses are then fed into an opponent stage. Energy models can be built from elements that are consistent with known physiology and psychophysics, and they permit a qualitative understanding of a variety of motion phenomena.

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We present a system that estimates the motion of a stereo head, or a single moving camera, based on video input. The system operates in real time with low delay, and the motion estimates are used for navigational purposes. The front end of the system is a feature tracker. Point features are matched between pairs of frames and linked into image trajectories at video rate. Robust estimates of the camera motion are then produced from the feature tracks using a geometric hypothesize-and-test architecture. This generates motion estimates from visual input alone. No prior knowledge of the scene or the motion is necessary. The visual estimates can also be used in conjunction with information from other sources, such as a global positioning system, inertia sensors, wheel encoders, etc. The pose estimation method has been applied successfully to video from aerial, automotive, and handheld platforms. We focus on results obtained with a stereo head mounted on an autonomous ground vehicle. We give examples of camera trajectories estimated in real time purely from images over previously unseen distances ͑600 m͒ and periods of time.

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When stimuli are available for just a brief period (approximately 100 ms) only restricted spatial information can be processed by the visual system. If the stimuli are presented very briefly, eye movements are not possible. The time during which the after-image of the stimulus is available for inspection is terminated by presentation of a masking pattern. We show here that in these conditions a small pattern is easily detected against a background made up of many others, only if this target pattern differs from the background patterns in certain local features. In this case the detectability of the target is almost independent of the number of background elements, suggesting that a parallel process is operating. Detection of patterns not differing from their backgrounds in such features requires focal attention which is a serial process. The aperture of this attention is scaled to minimize the number of shifts of attention required.

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