Human versus biometric detection of texture similarity in left and right irises

Abstract

The iris codes for the left and right iris of a person have previously been reported to be uncorrelated. We replicate this result using images from 327 persons from the iris image dataset used in the Iris Challenge Evaluations. The same images are then used in an experiment in which subjects view a left and a right iris image, and judge whether they are correctly paired by similarity of iris texture. Subjects are able to distinguish between iris images belonging to the same person versus belonging to different persons with over 86% accuracy overall, and over 93% accuracy when they judge their decision as confident. Thus, there clearly is a similarity in the texture pattern of the left and right iris of the same person that can reliably be detected by novice observers with a brief viewing time. This is the first research that we are aware of that investigates the abilities of human observers in judging similarity or dissimilarity of iris texture.

Human perceptual categorization of iris texture patterns

“…There is an expectation that iris images of the same eye of an individual, even if taken at different time frames, should have the same general iris texture pattern and should therefore be placed into the same category. From studies conducted on the appearance of left/right iris image texture [5], there was also an expectation that images of left and right eyes of the same individual should have texture pattern similar enough to always be categorized into the same set. A reliability measure can be calculated by looking at the consistency of placing each of the pairs of images into the same category.…”

A Study of Bilateral Symmetry in Color Fundus Photographs

“…There is a similar work for irises. Bilateral texture similarity in pairs of left and right irises was investigated based on human opinions in [64]. The setup used to get humans' opinions had one pair of irises per frame.…”

Investigation of Bilateral Similarity in Central Retinal Blood Vessels

“…Volunteers are asked to make a binary decision about pair of CRBVs. Bowyer et al, [41] performed similar experiments with human subjects for pairs of irises with the aim to find texture similarity in the left and right irises (see Subsection IV-D for details).…”

“…Contrary to our setup, the setup used in [41] for finding texture similarity in pairs of left and right irises had one pair of irises per frame; humans had to choose an option from a list of five degrees of certainty after seeing a pair only for three seconds instead of taking a binary decision; there were 150 PPs and 150 NPs; humans got a chance to train themselves a bit by seeing three PPs and two NPs with labels at the beginning of the test.…”