Publications | Empirical Inference - Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M. Generalized phase locking analysis of electrophysiology data 7th AREADNE Conference on Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2018 (poster)

link (url) Project Page [BibTex]

Photorealistic Video Super Resolution

Pérez-Pellitero, E., Sajjadi, M. S. M., Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B.

Workshop and Challenge on Perceptual Image Restoration and Manipulation (PIRM) at the 15th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2018 (poster)

[BibTex]

Pérez-Pellitero, E., Sajjadi, M. S. M., Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B. Photorealistic Video Super Resolution Workshop and Challenge on Perceptual Image Restoration and Manipulation (PIRM) at the 15th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2018 (poster)

[BibTex]

Retinal image quality of the human eye across the visual field

Meding, K., Hirsch, M., Wichmann, F. A.

14th Biannual Conference of the German Society for Cognitive Science (KOGWIS 2018), 2018 (poster)

[BibTex]

Meding, K., Hirsch, M., Wichmann, F. A. Retinal image quality of the human eye across the visual field 14th Biannual Conference of the German Society for Cognitive Science (KOGWIS 2018), 2018 (poster)

[BibTex]

Large sample analysis of the median heuristic

Garreau, D., Jitkrittum, W., Kanagawa, M.

2018 (misc) In preparation

arXiv [BibTex]

Garreau, D., Jitkrittum, W., Kanagawa, M. Large sample analysis of the median heuristic 2018 (misc) In preparation

arXiv [BibTex]

2005

Kernel methods for dependence testing in LFP-MUA

Gretton, A., Belitski, A., Murayama, Y., Schölkopf, B., Logothetis, N.

35(689.17), 35th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), November 2005 (poster)

Abstract

A fundamental problem in neuroscience is determining whether or not particular neural signals are dependent. The correlation is the most straightforward basis for such tests, but considerable work also focuses on the mutual information (MI), which is capable of revealing dependence of higher orders that the correlation cannot detect. That said, there are other measures of dependence that share with the MI an ability to detect dependence of any order, but which can be easier to compute in practice. We focus in particular on tests based on the functional covariance, which derive from work originally accomplished in 1959 by Renyi. Conceptually, our dependence tests work by computing the covariance between (infinite dimensional) vectors of nonlinear mappings of the observations being tested, and then determining whether this covariance is zero - we call this measure the constrained covariance (COCO). When these vectors are members of universal reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, we can prove this covariance to be zero only when the variables being tested are independent. The greatest advantage of these tests, compared with the mutual information, is their simplicity – when comparing two signals, we need only take the largest eigenvalue (or the trace) of a product of two matrices of nonlinearities, where these matrices are generally much smaller than the number of observations (and are very simple to construct). We compare the mutual information, the COCO, and the correlation in the context of finding changes in dependence between the LFP and MUA signals in the primary visual cortex of the anaesthetized macaque, during the presentation of dynamic natural stimuli. We demonstrate that the MI and COCO reveal dependence which is not detected by the correlation alone (which we prove by artificially removing all correlation between the signals, and then testing their dependence with COCO and the MI); and that COCO and the MI give results consistent with each other on our data.

Web [BibTex]

2005

Gretton, A., Belitski, A., Murayama, Y., Schölkopf, B., Logothetis, N. Kernel methods for dependence testing in LFP-MUA 35(689.17), 35th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), November 2005 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Rapid animal detection in natural scenes: Critical features are local

Wichmann, F., Rosas, P., Gegenfurtner, K.

Journal of Vision, 5(8):376, Fifth Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), September 2005 (poster)

Abstract

Thorpe et al (Nature 381, 1996) first showed how rapidly human observers are able to classify natural images as to whether they contain an animal or not. Whilst the basic result has been replicated using different response paradigms (yes-no versus forced-choice), modalities (eye movements versus button presses) as well as while measuring neurophysiological correlates (ERPs), it is still unclear which image features support this rapid categorisation. Recently Torralba and Oliva (Network: Computation in Neural Systems, 14, 2003) suggested that simple global image statistics can be used to predict seemingly complex decisions about the absence and/or presence of objects in natural scences. They show that the information contained in a small number (N=16) of spectral principal components (SPC)—principal component analysis (PCA) applied to the normalised power spectra of the images—is sufficient to achieve approximately 80% correct animal detection in natural scenes. Our goal was to test whether human observers make use of the power spectrum when rapidly classifying natural scenes. We measured our subjects' ability to detect animals in natural scenes as a function of presentation time (13 to 167 msec); images were immediately followed by a noise mask. In one condition we used the original images, in the other images whose power spectra were equalised (each power spectrum was set to the mean power spectrum over our ensemble of 1476 images). Thresholds for 75% correct animal detection were in the region of 20–30 msec for all observers, independent of the power spectrum of the images: this result makes it very unlikely that human observers make use of the global power spectrum. Taken together with the results of Gegenfurtner, Braun & Wichmann (Journal of Vision [abstract], 2003), showing the robustness of animal detection to global phase noise, we conclude that humans use local features, like edges and contours, in rapid animal detection.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Rosas, P., Gegenfurtner, K. Rapid animal detection in natural scenes: Critical features are local Journal of Vision, 5(8):376, Fifth Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), September 2005 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Learning an Interest Operator from Eye Movements

Kienzle, W., Franz, M., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B.

International Workshop on Bioinspired Information Processing (BIP 2005), 2005, pages: 1, September 2005 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

Kienzle, W., Franz, M., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B. Learning an Interest Operator from Eye Movements International Workshop on Bioinspired Information Processing (BIP 2005), 2005, pages: 1, September 2005 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

Classification of natural scenes using global image statistics

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

Journal of Vision, 5(8):602, Fifth Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), September 2005 (poster)

Abstract

The algorithmic classification of complex, natural scenes is generally considered a difficult task due to the large amount of information conveyed by natural images. Work by Simon Thorpe and colleagues showed that humans are capable of detecting animals within novel natural scenes with remarkable speed and accuracy. This suggests that the relevant information for classification can be extracted at comparatively limited computational cost. One hypothesis is that global image statistics such as the amplitude spectrum could underly fast image classification (Johnson & Olshausen, Journal of Vision, 2003; Torralba & Oliva, Network: Comput. Neural Syst., 2003). We used linear discriminant analysis to classify a set of 11.000 images into animal and non-animal images. After applying a DFT to the image, we put the Fourier spectrum into bins (8 orientations with 6 frequency bands each). Using all bins, classification performance on the Fourier spectrum reached 70%. However, performance was similar (67%) when only the high spatial frequency information was used and decreased steadily at lower spatial frequencies, reaching a minimum (50%) for the low spatial frequency information. Similar results were obtained when all bins were used on spatially filtered images. A detailed analysis of the classification weights showed that a relatively high level of performance (67%) could also be obtained when only 2 bins were used, namely the vertical and horizontal orientation at the highest spatial frequency band. Our results show that in the absence of sophisticated machine learning techniques, animal detection in natural scenes is limited to rather modest levels of performance, far below those of human observers. If limiting oneself to global image statistics such as the DFT then mostly information at the highest spatial frequencies is useful for the task. This is analogous to the results obtained with human observers on filtered images (Kirchner et al, VSS 2004).

Web DOI [BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of natural scenes using global image statistics Journal of Vision, 5(8):602, Fifth Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), September 2005 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Comparative evaluation of Independent Components Analysis algorithms for isolating target-relevant information in brain-signal classification

Hill, N., Schröder, M., Lal, T., Schölkopf, B.

Brain-Computer Interface Technology, 3, pages: 95, June 2005 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

Hill, N., Schröder, M., Lal, T., Schölkopf, B. Comparative evaluation of Independent Components Analysis algorithms for isolating target-relevant information in brain-signal classification Brain-Computer Interface Technology, 3, pages: 95, June 2005 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

Classification of natural scenes using global image statistics

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

47, pages: 88, 47. Tagung Experimentell Arbeitender Psychologen, April 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of natural scenes using global image statistics 47, pages: 88, 47. Tagung Experimentell Arbeitender Psychologen, April 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

Classification of Natural Scenes using Global Image Statistics

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

8, pages: 88, 8th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2005 (poster)

Abstract

The algorithmic classification of complex, natural scenes is generally considered a difficult task due to the large amount of information conveyed by natural images. Work by Simon Thorpe and colleagues showed that humans are capable of detecting animals within novel natural scenes with remarkable speed and accuracy. This suggests that the relevant information for classification can be extracted at comparatively limited computational cost. One hypothesis is that global image statistics such as the amplitude spectrum could underly fast image classification (Johnson & Olshausen, Journal of Vision, 2003; Torralba & Oliva, Network: Comput. Neural Syst., 2003). We used linear discriminant analysis to classify a set of 11.000 images into animal and nonanimal images. After applying a DFT to the image, we put the Fourier spectrum of each image into 48 bins (8 orientations with 6 frequency bands). Using all of these bins, classification performance on the Fourier spectrum reached 70%. In an iterative procedure, we then removed the bins whose absence caused the smallest damage to the classification performance (one bin per iteration). Notably, performance stayed at about 70% until less then 6 bins were left. A detailed analysis of the classification weights showed that a comparatively high level of performance (67%) could also be obtained when only 2 bins were used, namely the vertical orientations at the highest spatial frequency band. When using only a single frequency band (8 bins) we found that 67% classification performance could be reached when only the high spatial frequency information was used, which decreased steadily at lower spatial frequencies, reaching a minimum (50%) for the low spatial frequency information. Similar results were obtained when all bins were used on spatially pre-filtered images. Our results show that in the absence of sophisticated machine learning techniques, animal detection in natural scenes is limited to rather modest levels of performance, far below those of human observers. If limiting oneself to global image statistics such as the DFT then mostly information at the highest spatial frequencies is useful for the task. This is analogous to the results obtained with human observers on filtered images (Kirchner et al, VSS 2004).

Web [BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of Natural Scenes using Global Image Statistics 8, pages: 88, 8th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2005 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Efficient Adaptive Sampling of the Psychometric Function by Maximizing Information Gain

Tanner, T., Hill, N., Rasmussen, C., Wichmann, F.

8, pages: 109, (Editors: Bülthoff, H. H., H. A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F. A. Wichmann), 8th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2005 (poster)

Abstract

A psychometric function can be described by its shape and four parameters: position or threshold, slope or width, false alarm rate or chance level, and miss or lapse rate. Depending on the parameters of interest some points on the psychometric function may be more informative than others. Adaptive methods attempt to place trials on the most informative points based on the data collected in previous trials. We introduce a new adaptive bayesian psychometric method which collects data for any set of parameters with high efficency. It places trials by minimizing the expected entropy [1] of the posterior pdf over a set of possible stimuli. In contrast to most other adaptive methods it is neither limited to threshold measurement nor to forced-choice designs. Nuisance parameters can be included in the estimation and lead to less biased estimates. The method supports block designs which do not harm the performance when a sufficient number of trials are performed. Block designs are useful for control of response bias and short term performance shifts such as adaptation. We present the results of evaluations of the method by computer simulations and experiments with human observers. In the simulations we investigated the role of parametric assumptions, the quality of different point estimates, the effect of dynamic termination criteria and many other settings. [1] Kontsevich, L.L. and Tyler, C.W. (1999): Bayesian adaptive estimation of psychometric slope and threshold. Vis. Res. 39 (16), 2729-2737.

Web [BibTex]

Tanner, T., Hill, N., Rasmussen, C., Wichmann, F. Efficient Adaptive Sampling of the Psychometric Function by Maximizing Information Gain 8, pages: 109, (Editors: Bülthoff, H. H., H. A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F. A. Wichmann), 8th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2005 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Automatic Classification of Plankton from Digital Images

Sieracki, M., Riseman, E., Balch, W., Benfield, M., Hanson, A., Pilskaln, C., Schultz, H., Sieracki, C., Utgoff, P., Blaschko, M., Holness, G., Mattar, M., Lisin, D., Tupper, B.

ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, 1, pages: 1, February 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

Sieracki, M., Riseman, E., Balch, W., Benfield, M., Hanson, A., Pilskaln, C., Schultz, H., Sieracki, C., Utgoff, P., Blaschko, M., Holness, G., Mattar, M., Lisin, D., Tupper, B. Automatic Classification of Plankton from Digital Images ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, 1, pages: 1, February 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

Bayesian Inference for Psychometric Functions

Kuss, M., Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F.

8, pages: 106, (Editors: Bülthoff, H. H., H. A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F. A. Wichmann), 8th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2005 (poster)

Abstract

In psychophysical studies of perception the psychometric function is used to model the relation between the physical stimulus intensity and the observer's ability to detect or discriminate between stimuli of different intensities. We propose the use of Bayesian inference to extract the information contained in experimental data to learn about the parameters of psychometric functions. Since Bayesian inference cannot be performed analytically we use a Markov chain Monte Carlo method to generate samples from the posterior distribution over parameters. These samples can be used to estimate Bayesian confidence intervals and other characteristics of the posterior distribution. We compare our approach with traditional methods based on maximum-likelihood parameter estimation combined with parametric bootstrap techniques for confidence interval estimation. Experiments indicate that Bayesian inference methods are superior to bootstrap-based methods and are thus the method of choice for estimating the psychometric function and its confidence-intervals.

Web [BibTex]

Kuss, M., Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F. Bayesian Inference for Psychometric Functions 8, pages: 106, (Editors: Bülthoff, H. H., H. A. Mallot, R. Ulrich and F. A. Wichmann), 8th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), February 2005 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Global image statistics of natural scenes

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

Bioinspired Information Processing, 08, pages: 1, 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Global image statistics of natural scenes Bioinspired Information Processing, 08, pages: 1, 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

Kernel-Methods, Similarity, and Exemplar Theories of Categorization

Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F.

ASIC, 4, 2005 (poster)

Abstract

Kernel-methods are popular tools in machine learning and statistics that can be implemented in a simple feed-forward neural network. They have strong connections to several psychological theories. For example, Shepard‘s universal law of generalization can be given a kernel interpretation. This leads to an inner product and a metric on the psychological space that is different from the usual Minkowski norm. The metric has psychologically interesting properties: It is bounded from above and does not have additive segments. As categorization models often rely on Shepard‘s law as a model for psychological similarity some of them can be recast as kernel-methods. In particular, ALCOVE is shown to be closely related to kernel logistic regression. The relationship to the Generalized Context Model is also discussed. It is argued that functional analysis which is routinely used in machine learning provides valuable insights also for psychology.

Web [BibTex]

Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F. Kernel-Methods, Similarity, and Exemplar Theories of Categorization ASIC, 4, 2005 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Rapid animal detection in natural scenes: critical features are local

Wichmann, F., Rosas, P., Gegenfurtner, K.

Experimentelle Psychologie. Beitr{\"a}ge zur 47. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 47, pages: 225, 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Rosas, P., Gegenfurtner, K. Rapid animal detection in natural scenes: critical features are local Experimentelle Psychologie. Beitr{\"a}ge zur 47. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 47, pages: 225, 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

The human brain as large margin classifier

Graf, A., Wichmann, F., Bülthoff, H., Schölkopf, B.

Proceedings of the Computational & Systems Neuroscience Meeting (COSYNE), 2, pages: 1, 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

Graf, A., Wichmann, F., Bülthoff, H., Schölkopf, B. The human brain as large margin classifier Proceedings of the Computational & Systems Neuroscience Meeting (COSYNE), 2, pages: 1, 2005 (poster)

[BibTex]

2002

Real-Time Statistical Learning for Oculomotor Control and Visuomotor Coordination

Vijayakumar, S., Souza, A., Peters, J., Conradt, J., Rutkowski, T., Ijspeert, A., Nakanishi, J., Inoue, M., Shibata, T., Wiryo, A., Itti, L., Amari, S., Schaal, S.

(Editors: Becker, S. , S. Thrun, K. Obermayer), Sixteenth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), December 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

2002

Vijayakumar, S., Souza, A., Peters, J., Conradt, J., Rutkowski, T., Ijspeert, A., Nakanishi, J., Inoue, M., Shibata, T., Wiryo, A., Itti, L., Amari, S., Schaal, S. Real-Time Statistical Learning for Oculomotor Control and Visuomotor Coordination (Editors: Becker, S. , S. Thrun, K. Obermayer), Sixteenth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), December 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Learning with Kernels: Support Vector Machines, Regularization, Optimization, and Beyond

Schölkopf, B., Smola, A.

pages: 644, Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, December 2002, Parts of this book, including an introduction to kernel methods, can be downloaded here. (book)

Abstract

In the 1990s, a new type of learning algorithm was developed, based on results from statistical learning theory: the Support Vector Machine (SVM). This gave rise to a new class of theoretically elegant learning machines that use a central concept of SVMs-kernelsfor a number of learning tasks. Kernel machines provide a modular framework that can be adapted to different tasks and domains by the choice of the kernel function and the base algorithm. They are replacing neural networks in a variety of fields, including engineering, information retrieval, and bioinformatics. Learning with Kernels provides an introduction to SVMs and related kernel methods. Although the book begins with the basics, it also includes the latest research. It provides all of the concepts necessary to enable a reader equipped with some basic mathematical knowledge to enter the world of machine learning using theoretically well-founded yet easy-to-use kernel algorithms and to understand and apply the powerful algorithms that have been developed over the last few years.

Web [BibTex]

Schölkopf, B., Smola, A. Learning with Kernels: Support Vector Machines, Regularization, Optimization, and Beyond pages: 644, Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, December 2002, Parts of this book, including an introduction to kernel methods, can be downloaded here. (book)

Web [BibTex]

Surface-slant-from-texture discrimination: Effects of slant level and texture type

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Wagemans, J.

Journal of Vision, 2(7):300, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Abstract

The problem of surface-slant-from-texture was studied psychophysically by measuring the performances of five human subjects in a slant-discrimination task with a number of different types of textures: uniform lattices, randomly displaced lattices, polka dots, Voronoi tessellations, orthogonal sinusoidal plaid patterns, fractal or 1/f noise, “coherent” noise and a “diffusion-based” texture (leopard skin-like). The results show: (1) Improving performance with larger slants for all textures. (2) A “non-symmetrical” performance around a particular slant characterized by a psychometric function that is steeper in the direction of the more slanted orientation. (3) For sufficiently large slants (66 deg) there are no major differences in performance between any of the different textures. (4) For slants at 26, 37 and 53 degrees, however, there are marked differences between the different textures. (5) The observed differences in performance across textures for slants up to 53 degrees are systematic within subjects, and nearly so across them. This allows a rank-order of textures to be formed according to their “helpfulness” — that is, how easy the discrimination task is when a particular texture is mapped on the surface. Polka dots tended to allow the best slant discrimination performance, noise patterns the worst up to the large slant of 66 degrees at which performance was almost independent of the particular texture chosen. Finally, our large number of 2AFC trials (approximately 2800 trials per texture across subjects) and associated tight confidence intervals may enable us to find out about which statistical properties of the textures could be responsible for surface-slant-from-texture estimation, with the ultimate goal of being able to predict observer performance for any arbitrary texture.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Wagemans, J. Surface-slant-from-texture discrimination: Effects of slant level and texture type Journal of Vision, 2(7):300, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Modelling Contrast Transfer in Spatial Vision

Wichmann, F.

Journal of Vision, 2(10):7, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Abstract

Much of our information about spatial vision comes from detection experiments involving low-contrast stimuli. Contrast discrimination experiments provide one way to explore the visual system's response to stimuli of higher contrast, the results of which allow different models of contrast processing (e.g. energy versus gain-control models) to be critically assessed (Wichmann & Henning, 1999). Studies of detection and discrimination using pulse train stimuli in noise, on the other hand, make predictions about the number, position and properties of noise sources within the processing stream (Henning, Bird & Wichmann, 2002). Here I report modelling results combining data from both sinusoidal and pulse train experiments in and without noise to arrive at a more tightly constrained model of early spatial vision.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Wichmann, F. Modelling Contrast Transfer in Spatial Vision Journal of Vision, 2(10):7, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Pulse train detection and discrimination in pink noise

Henning, G., Wichmann, F., Bird, C.

Journal of Vision, 2(7):229, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Abstract

Much of our information about spatial vision comes from detection experiments involving low-contrast stimuli. Contrast discrimination experiments provide one way to explore the visual system's response to stimuli of higher contrast. We explored both detection and contrast discrimination performance with sinusoidal and "pulse-train" (or line) gratings. Both types of grating had a fundamental spatial frequency of 2.09-c/deg but the pulse-train, ideally, contains, in addition to its fundamental component, all the harmonics of the fundamental. Although the 2.09-c/deg pulse-train produced on the display was measured and shown to contain at least 8 harmonics at equal contrast, it was no more detectable than its most detectable component; no benefit from having additional information at the harmonics was measurable. The addition of broadband "pink" noise, designed to equalize the detectability of the components of the pulse train, made it about a factor of four more detectable than any of its components. However, in contrast-discrimination experiments, with an in-phase pedestal or masking grating of the same form and phase as the signal and 15% contrast, the noise did not improve the discrimination performance of the pulse train relative to that of its sinusoidal components. In contrast, a 2.09-c/deg "super train," constructed to have 8 equally detectable harmonics, was a factor of five more detectable than any of its components. We discuss the implications of these observations for models of early vision in particular the implications for possible sources of internal noise.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Henning, G., Wichmann, F., Bird, C. Pulse train detection and discrimination in pink noise Journal of Vision, 2(7):229, Second Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), November 2002 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Phase information in the recognition of natural images

Braun, D., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

Perception, 31(ECVP Abstract Supplement):133, 25th European Conference on Visual Perception, August 2002 (poster)

Abstract

Fourier phase plays an important role in determining global image structure. For example, when the phase spectrum of an image of a flower is swapped with that of a tank, we usually perceive a tank, even though the amplitude spectrum is still that of the flower. Similarly, when the phase spectrum of an image is randomly swapped across frequencies, that is its Fourier energy is randomly distributed over the image, the resulting image becomes impossible to recognise. Our goal was to evaluate the effect of phase manipulations in a quantitative manner. Subjects viewed two images of natural scenes, one of which contained an animal (the target) embedded in the background. The spectra of the images were manipulated by adding random phase noise at each frequency. The phase noise was the independent variable, uniformly distributed between 0° and ±180°. Subjects were remarkably resistant to phase noise. Even with ±120° noise, subjects were still 75% correct. The proportion of correct answers closely followed the correlation between original and noise-distorted images. Thus it appears as if it was not the global phase information per se that determines our percept of natural images, but rather the effect of phase on local image features.

Web [BibTex]

Braun, D., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Phase information in the recognition of natural images Perception, 31(ECVP Abstract Supplement):133, 25th European Conference on Visual Perception, August 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Detection and discrimination in pink noise

Wichmann, F., Henning, G.

5, pages: 100, 5. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2002 (poster)

Abstract

Much of our information about early spatial vision comes from detection experiments involving low-contrast stimuli, which are not, perhaps, particularly "natural" stimuli. Contrast discrimination experiments provide one way to explore the visual system's response to stimuli of higher contrast whilst keeping the number of unknown parameters comparatively small. We explored both detection and contrast discrimination performance with sinusoidal and "pulse-train" (or line) gratings. Both types of grating had a fundamental spatial frequency of 2.09-c/deg but the pulse-train, ideally, contains, in addition to its fundamental component, all the harmonics of the fundamental. Although the 2.09-c/deg pulse-train produced on our display was measured using a high-performance digital camera (Photometrics) and shown to contain at least 8 harmonics at equal contrast, it was no more detectable than its most detectable component; no benefit from having additional information at the harmonics was measurable. The addition of broadband 1-D "pink" noise made it about a factor of four more detectable than any of its components. However, in contrast-discrimination experiments, with an in-phase pedestal or masking grating of the same form and phase as the signal and 15% contrast, the noise did not improve the discrimination performance of the pulse train relative to that of its sinusoidal components. We discuss the implications of these observations for models of early vision in particular the implications for possible sources of internal noise.

Web [BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, G. Detection and discrimination in pink noise 5, pages: 100, 5. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2002 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Application of Monte Carlo Methods to Psychometric Function Fitting

Wichmann, F.

Proceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Mathematical Psychology, pages: 44, 2002 (poster)

Abstract

The psychometric function relates an observer's performance to an independent variable, usually some physical quantity of a stimulus in a psychophysical task. Here I describe methods to (1) fitting psychometric functions, (2) assessing goodness-of-fit, and (3) providing confidence intervals for the function's parameters and other estimates derived from them. First I describe a constrained maximum-likelihood method for parameter estimation. Using Monte-Carlo simulations I demonstrate that it is important to have a fitting method that takes stimulus-independent errors (or "lapses") into account. Second, a number of goodness-of-fit tests are introduced. Because psychophysical data sets are usually rather small I advocate the use of Monte Carlo resampling techniques that do not rely on asymptotic theory for goodness-of-fit assessment. Third, a parametric bootstrap is employed to estimate the variability of fitted parameters and derived quantities such as thresholds and slopes. I describe how the bootstrap bridging assumption, on which the validity of the procedure depends, can be tested without incurring too high a cost in computation time. Finally I describe how the methods can be extended to test hypotheses concerning the form and shape of several psychometric functions. Software describing the methods is available (http://www.bootstrap-software.com/psignifit/), as well as articles describing the methods in detail (Wichmann&Hill, Perception&Psychophysics, 2001a,b).

[BibTex]

Wichmann, F. Application of Monte Carlo Methods to Psychometric Function Fitting Proceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Mathematical Psychology, pages: 44, 2002 (poster)

[BibTex]

Optimal linear estimation of self-motion - a real-world test of a model of fly tangential neurons

Franz, MO.

SAB 02 Workshop, Robotics as theoretical biology, 7th meeting of the International Society for Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour (SAB), (Editors: Prescott, T.; Webb, B.), 2002 (poster)

Abstract

The tangential neurons in the fly brain are sensitive to the typical optic flow patterns generated during self-motion (see example in Fig.1). We examine whether a simplified linear model of these neurons can be used to estimate self-motion from the optic flow. We present a theory for the construction of an optimal linear estimator incorporating prior knowledge both about the distance distribution of the environment, and about the noise and self-motion statistics of the sensor. The optimal estimator is tested on a gantry carrying an omnidirectional vision sensor that can be moved along three translational and one rotational degree of freedom. The experiments indicate that the proposed approach yields accurate results for rotation estimates, independently of the current translation and scene layout. Translation estimates, however, turned out to be sensitive to simultaneous rotation and to the particular distance distribution of the scene. The gantry experiments confirm that the receptive field organization of the tangential neurons allows them, as an ensemble, to extract self-motion from the optic flow.

PDF [BibTex]

Franz, MO. Optimal linear estimation of self-motion - a real-world test of a model of fly tangential neurons SAB 02 Workshop, Robotics as theoretical biology, 7th meeting of the International Society for Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour (SAB), (Editors: Prescott, T.; Webb, B.), 2002 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

2001

Perception of Planar Shapes in Depth

Wichmann, F., Willems, B., Rosas, P., Wagemans, J.

Journal of Vision, 1(3):176, First Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), December 2001 (poster)

Abstract

We investigated the influence of the perceived 3D-orientation of planar elliptical shapes on the perception of the shapes themselves. Ellipses were projected onto the surface of a sphere and subjects were asked to indicate if the projected shapes looked as if they were a circle on the surface of the sphere. The image of the sphere was obtained from a real, (near) perfect sphere using a highly accurate digital camera (real sphere diameter 40 cm; camera-to-sphere distance 320 cm; for details see Willems et al., Perception 29, S96, 2000; Photometrics SenSys 400 digital camera with Rodenstock lens, 12-bit linear luminance resolution). Stimuli were presented monocularly on a carefully linearized Sony GDM-F500 monitor keeping the scene geometry as in the real case (sphere diameter on screen 8.2 cm; viewing distance 66 cm). Experiments were run in a darkened room using a viewing tube to minimize, as far as possible, extraneous monocular cues to depth. Three different methods were used to obtain subjects' estimates of 3D-shape: the method of adjustment, temporal 2-alternative forced choice (2AFC) and yes/no. Several results are noteworthy. First, mismatch between perceived and objective slant tended to decrease with increasing objective slant. Second, the variability of the settings, too, decreased with increasing objective slant. Finally, we comment on the results obtained using different psychophysical methods and compare our results to those obtained using a real sphere and binocular vision (Willems et al.).

Web DOI [BibTex]

2001

Wichmann, F., Willems, B., Rosas, P., Wagemans, J. Perception of Planar Shapes in Depth Journal of Vision, 1(3):176, First Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), December 2001 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Plaid maskers revisited: asymmetric plaids

Wichmann, F.

pages: 57, 4. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), March 2001 (poster)

Abstract

A large number of psychophysical and physiological experiments suggest that luminance patterns are independently analysed in channels responding to different bands of spatial frequency. There are, however, interactions among stimuli falling well outside the usual estimates of channels' bandwidths. Derrington & Henning (1989) first reported that, in 2-AFC sinusoidal-grating detection, plaid maskers, whose components are oriented symmetrically about the signal orientation, cause a substantially larger threshold elevation than would be predicted from their sinusoidal constituents alone. Wichmann & Tollin (1997a,b) and Wichmann & Henning (1998) confirmed and extended the original findings, measuring masking as a function of presentation time and plaid mask contrast. Here I investigate masking using plaid patterns whose components are asymmetrically positioned about the signal orientation. Standard temporal 2-AFC pattern discrimination experiments were conducted using plaid patterns and oblique sinusoidal gratings as maskers, and horizontally orientated sinusoidal gratings as signals. Signal and maskers were always interleaved on the display (refresh rate 152 Hz). As in the case of the symmetrical plaid maskers, substantial masking was observed for many of the asymmetrical plaids. Masking is neither a straightforward function of the plaid's constituent sinusoidal components nor of the periodicity of the luminance beats between components. These results cause problems for the notion that, even for simple stimuli, detection and discrimination are based on the outputs of channels tuned to limited ranges of spatial frequency and orientation, even if a limited set of nonlinear interactions between these channels is allowed.

Web [BibTex]

Wichmann, F. Plaid maskers revisited: asymmetric plaids pages: 57, 4. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), March 2001 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

The pedestal effect with a pulse train and its constituent sinusoids

Henning, G., Wichmann, F., Bird, C.

Twenty-Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference, 2001 (poster)

Abstract

Curves showing "threshold" contrast for detecting a signal grating as a function of the contrast of a masking grating of the same orientation, spatial frequency, and phase show a characteristic improvement in performance at masker contrasts near the contrast threshold of the unmasked signal. Depending on the percentage of correct responses used to define the threshold, the best performance can be as much as a factor of three better than the unmasked threshold obtained in the absence of any masking grating. The result is called the pedestal effect (sometimes, the dipper function). We used a 2AFC procedure to measure the effect with harmonically related sinusoids ranging from 2 to 16 c/deg - all with maskers of the same orientation, spatial frequency and phase - and with masker contrasts ranging from 0 to 50%. The curves for different spatial frequencies are identical if both the vertical axis (showing the threshold signal contrast) and the horizontal axis (showing the masker contrast) are scaled by the threshold contrast of the signal obtained with no masker. Further, a pulse train with a fundamental frequency of 2 c/deg produces a curve that is indistinguishable from that of a 2-c/deg sinusoid despite the fact that at higher masker contrasts, the pulse train contains at least 8 components all of them equally detectable. The effect of adding 1-D spatial noise is also discussed.

[BibTex]

Henning, G., Wichmann, F., Bird, C. The pedestal effect with a pulse train and its constituent sinusoids Twenty-Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference, 2001 (poster)

[BibTex]

Modeling the Dynamics of Individual Neurons of the Stomatogastric Networks with Support Vector Machines

Frontzek, T., Gutzen, C., Lal, TN., Heinzel, H-G., Eckmiller, R., Böhm, H.

Abstract Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Neuroethology (ICN'2001) Bonn, abstract 404, 2001 (poster)

Abstract

In small rhythmic active networks timing of individual neurons is crucial for generating different spatial-temporal motor patterns. Switching of one neuron between different rhythms can cause transition between behavioral modes. In order to understand the dynamics of rhythmically active neurons we analyzed the oscillatory membranpotential of a pacemaker neuron and used different neural network models to predict dynamics of its time series. In a first step we have trained conventional RBF networks and Support Vector Machines (SVMs) using gaussian kernels with intracellulary recordings of the pyloric dilatator neuron in the Australian crayfish, Cherax destructor albidus. As a rule SVMs were able to learn the nonlinear dynamics of pyloric neurons faster (e.g. 15s) than RBF networks (e.g. 309s) under the same hardware conditions. After training SVMs performed a better iterated one-step-ahead prediction of time series in the pyloric dilatator neuron with regard to test error and error sum. The test error decreased with increasing number of support vectors. The best SVM used 196 support vectors and produced a test error of 0.04622 as opposed to the best RBF with 0.07295 using 26 RBF-neurons. In pacemaker neuron PD the timepoint at which the membranpotential will cross threshold for generation of its oscillatory peak is most important for determination of the test error. Interestingly SVMs are especially better in predicting this important part of the membranpotential which is superimposed by various synaptic inputs, which drive the membranpotential to its threshold.

[BibTex]

Frontzek, T., Gutzen, C., Lal, TN., Heinzel, H-G., Eckmiller, R., Böhm, H. Modeling the Dynamics of Individual Neurons of the Stomatogastric Networks with Support Vector Machines Abstract Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Neuroethology (ICN'2001) Bonn, abstract 404, 2001 (poster)

[BibTex]

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