Influence of scale and orientation on the visual perception of natural scenes

Hansen, Bruce C.; Essock, Edward A.

doi:10.1080/13506280444000715

Cited by 36 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(108 reference statements)

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“…The resulting averaged ratio therefore serves as an index of local filter activity (which is dependent on the number of edges/lines at different scales and orientations) and therefore corresponds to the relative density of edges and lines making up the structure of a given image. Such physical characteristics of scenes are important because both the slope of the amplitude spectra and structural complexity of natural scene stimuli have been shown to modulate behavioral performance on a number of different tasks involving the detection, discrimination, or identification of different visual stimuli (Bex et al 2009;Hansen and Essock 2005;Hansen and Hess 2007;Párraga et al 2000;Tadmor and Tolhurst 1994;Thomson and Foster 1997;Webster and Miyahara 1997). Correspondingly, Hansen et al (2011) found an interaction between early VEP component magnitude that was dependent on both the structural complexity and amplitude spectrum slope.…”

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confidence: 99%

Different spatial frequency bands selectively signal for natural image statistics in the early visual system

Hansen

Johnson

Ellemberg

2012

Journal of Neurophysiology

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Hansen BC, Johnson AP, Ellemberg D. Different spatial frequency bands selectively signal for natural image statistics in the early visual system. J Neurophysiol 108: 2160 -2172, 2012. First published July 25, 2012 doi:10.1152/jn.00288.2012.-Early visual evoked potentials (VEPs) measured in humans have recently been observed to be modulated by the image statistics of natural scene imagery. Specifically, the early VEP is dominated by a strong positivity when participants view minimally complex natural scene imagery, with the magnitude of that component being modulated by luminance contrast differences across spatial frequency (i.e., the slope of the amplitude spectrum). For scenes high in structural complexity, the early VEP is dominated by a prominent negativity that exhibits little dependency on luminance contrast. However, since natural scene imagery is broad band in terms of spatial frequency, it is not known whether the above-mentioned modulation results from a complex interaction within or between the early neural processes tuned to different bands of spatial frequency. Here, we sought to address this question by measuring early VEPs (specifically, the C1, P1, and N1 components) while human participants viewed natural scene imagery that was filtered to contain specific bands of spatial frequency information. The results show that the C1 component is largely unmodulated by the luminance statistics of natural scene imagery (being only measurable when such stimuli were made to contain high spatial frequencies). The P1 and N1, on the other hand, were observed to exhibit strong spatial frequency-dependent modulation to the luminance statistics of natural scene imagery. The results therefore suggest that the dependency of early VEPs on natural image statistics results from an interaction between the early neural processes tuned to different bands of spatial frequency.

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confidence: 99%

Different spatial frequency bands selectively signal for natural image statistics in the early visual system

Hansen

Johnson

Ellemberg

2012

Journal of Neurophysiology

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“…This was also examined by Hansen and Essock (2004b), however, the number of carpentered and mixed naturalistic/carpentered images in their database was limited, thereby discouraging any meaningful analyses with respect to different scene-scales.…”

Section: Characteristic Slopes/or Different Scene Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the limitations of the imagery discussed above, Hansen and Essock (2004b) sought to determine whether a values describing the orientation-averaged amplitUde spectra of real-world imagery do in fact depend on the type of content present in the imagery. In their report, Hansen and Essock (2004b) compiled an image library of over 1800 natural scene images ranging in content from purely naturalistic to images containing only indoor or outdoor carpentered materials (see Hansen & Essock, 2004a;2004b for image acquisition and content analysis specifications and procedures).…”

Section: Characteristic Slopes/or Different Scene Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their report, Hansen and Essock (2004b) compiled an image library of over 1800 natural scene images ranging in content from purely naturalistic to images containing only indoor or outdoor carpentered materials (see Hansen & Essock, 2004a;2004b for image acquisition and content analysis specifications and procedures). In order to conduct an analysis of imagery most likely to be encountered, Hansen and Essock (2004b) grouped imagery into three very general categories, specifically: purely naturalistic, mixed naturalistic and carpentered content, and purely carpentered content (see Figure 5a for examples). The image database contained 131 images (1024 x 1024 pixels) of carpentered environments, and thus served as a limiting factor in terms of the number of scenes selected for equal n comparisons.…”

Section: Characteristic Slopes/or Different Scene Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, these spatial relationships of the content contained in real-world imagery! have been extensively examined and quantified by numerous techniques, some of which include optical and digital Fourier analysis, higher-order autocorrelation analyses, principal component analysis, and convolution with various types of gradient kernels (Switkes, Mayer, & Sloan, 1978;Burton & Moorhead, 1987;Tolhurst, Tadmor, & Chao, 1992;Van der Schaaf & van Hateren, 1996;Keil & Cristobal, 2000;Oliva & Torralba, 2001;Thomson, 2001a;Baddeley & Hancock, 1991;Craven, 1993;Coppola, Purves, McCoy, & Purves, 1998;Howe & Purves, 2002;Hansen & Essock, 2004a;2004b). Regardless of the analysis technique utilized, or the scene specific content (e.g., trees/grasslands or buildings/roadways) in the types natural scene imagery investigated, two general regularities of spatial content are found: (1) The amount of physical energy (or intensity) of any real-world image peaks at the larger spatial scales (Le., lower spatial frequencies) and decreases with increasing spatial scale (i.e., higher spatial frequencies) of the image content, and (2) for typical scenes, an anisotropy with a bias in image content favoring the horizontal and vertical axes (cardinal axes) relative to the oblique axes (45 0 and 135 0 oblique).…”

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Human visual processing of orientation in broad stimuli.

Hansen¹

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for providing me with endless opportunities by instilling in me the strength, determination, perseverance, and self-discipline in order to achieve any goal.III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Edward A. Essock for his careful guidance, considerate patience, and endless support as well as for providing me with the opportunity to engage in graduate study. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members: Dr. VI

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Image statistics of the environment surrounding freely behaving hoverflies

et al. 2019

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Natural scenes are not as random as they might appear, but are constrained in both space and time. The 2-dimensional spatial constraints can be described by quantifying the image statistics of photographs. Human observers perceive images with naturalistic image statistics as more pleasant to view, and both fly and vertebrate peripheral and higher order visual neurons are tuned to naturalistic image statistics. However, for a given animal, what is natural differs depending on the behavior, and even if we have a broad understanding of image statistics, we know less about the scenes relevant for particular behaviors. To mitigate this, we here investigate the image statistics surrounding Episyrphus balteatus hoverflies, where the males hover in sun shafts created by surrounding trees, producing a rich and dense background texture and also intricate shadow patterns on the ground. We quantified the image statistics of photographs of the ground and the surrounding panorama, as the ventral and lateral visual field is particularly important for visual flight control, and found differences in spatial statistics in photos where the hoverflies were hovering compared to where they were flying. Our results can, in the future, be used to create more naturalistic stimuli for experimenter-controlled experiments in the laboratory.

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Influence of scale and orientation on the visual perception of natural scenes

Cited by 36 publications

References 59 publications

Different spatial frequency bands selectively signal for natural image statistics in the early visual system

Different spatial frequency bands selectively signal for natural image statistics in the early visual system

Human visual processing of orientation in broad stimuli.

Image statistics of the environment surrounding freely behaving hoverflies

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