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47 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2013

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Coupling between spiking activity and beta band spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque PFC

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M.

43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2013 (poster)

[BibTex]

2013

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M. Coupling between spiking activity and beta band spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque PFC 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2013 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Gaussian Process Vine Copulas for Multivariate Dependence

Lopez-Paz, D., Hernandez-Lobato, J., Ghahramani, Z.

International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2013 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

Lopez-Paz, D., Hernandez-Lobato, J., Ghahramani, Z. Gaussian Process Vine Copulas for Multivariate Dependence International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2013 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

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Domain Generalization via Invariant Feature Representation

Muandet, K., Balduzzi, D., Schölkopf, B.

30th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML2013), 2013 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

Muandet, K., Balduzzi, D., Schölkopf, B. Domain Generalization via Invariant Feature Representation 30th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML2013), 2013 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

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Analyzing locking of spikes to spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque prefrontal cortex

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M.

Bernstein Conference, 2013 (poster)

DOI [BibTex]

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M. Analyzing locking of spikes to spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque prefrontal cortex Bernstein Conference, 2013 (poster)

DOI [BibTex]

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One-class Support Measure Machines for Group Anomaly Detection

Muandet, K., Schölkopf, B.

29th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI), 2013 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

Muandet, K., Schölkopf, B. One-class Support Measure Machines for Group Anomaly Detection 29th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI), 2013 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

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The Randomized Dependence Coefficient

Lopez-Paz, D., Hennig, P., Schölkopf, B.

Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2013 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

Lopez-Paz, D., Hennig, P., Schölkopf, B. The Randomized Dependence Coefficient Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2013 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

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Characterization of different types of sharp-wave ripple signatures in the CA1 of the macaque hippocampus

Ramirez-Villegas, J., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M.

4th German Neurophysiology PhD Meeting Networks, 2013 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Ramirez-Villegas, J., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M. Characterization of different types of sharp-wave ripple signatures in the CA1 of the macaque hippocampus 4th German Neurophysiology PhD Meeting Networks, 2013 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

2011

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Spatiotemporal mapping of rhythmic activity in the inferior convexity of the macaque prefrontal cortex

Panagiotaropoulos, T., Besserve, M., Crocker, B., Kapoor, V., Tolias, A., Panzeri, S., Logothetis, N.

41(239.15), 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), November 2011 (poster)

Abstract
The inferior convexity of the macaque prefrontal cortex (icPFC) is known to be involved in higher order processing of sensory information mediating stimulus selection, attention and working memory. Until now, the vast majority of electrophysiological investigations of the icPFC employed single electrode recordings. As a result, relatively little is known about the spatiotemporal structure of neuronal activity in this cortical area. Here we study in detail the spatiotemporal properties of local field potentials (LFP's) in the icPFC using multi electrode recordings during anesthesia. We computed the LFP-LFP coherence as a function of frequency for thousands of pairs of simultaneously recorded sites anterior to the arcuate and inferior to the principal sulcus. We observed two distinct peaks of coherent oscillatory activity between approximately 4-10 and 15-25 Hz. We then quantified the instantaneous phase of these frequency bands using the Hilbert transform and found robust phase gradients across recording sites. The dependency of the phase on the spatial location reflects the existence of traveling waves of electrical activity in the icPFC. The dominant axis of these traveling waves roughly followed the ventral-dorsal plane. Preliminary results show that repeated visual stimulation with a 10s movie had no dramatic effect on the spatial structure of the traveling waves. Traveling waves of electrical activity in the icPFC could reflect highly organized cortical processing in this area of prefrontal cortex.

Web [BibTex]

2011

Panagiotaropoulos, T., Besserve, M., Crocker, B., Kapoor, V., Tolias, A., Panzeri, S., Logothetis, N. Spatiotemporal mapping of rhythmic activity in the inferior convexity of the macaque prefrontal cortex 41(239.15), 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), November 2011 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Evaluation and Optimization of MR-Based Attenuation Correction Methods in Combined Brain PET/MR

Mantlik, F., Hofmann, M., Bezrukov, I., Schmidt, H., Kolb, A., Beyer, T., Reimold, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B.

2011(MIC18.M-96), 2011 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC), October 2011 (poster)

Abstract
Combined PET/MR provides simultaneous molecular and functional information in an anatomical context with unique soft tissue contrast. However, PET/MR does not support direct derivation of attenuation maps of objects and tissues within the measured PET field-of-view. Valid attenuation maps are required for quantitative PET imaging, specifically for scientific brain studies. Therefore, several methods have been proposed for MR-based attenuation correction (MR-AC). Last year, we performed an evaluation of different MR-AC methods, including simple MR thresholding, atlas- and machine learning-based MR-AC. CT-based AC served as gold standard reference. RoIs from 2 anatomic brain atlases with different levels of detail were used for evaluation of correction accuracy. We now extend our evaluation of different MR-AC methods by using an enlarged dataset of 23 patients from the integrated BrainPET/MR (Siemens Healthcare). Further, we analyze options for improving the MR-AC performance in terms of speed and accuracy. Finally, we assess the impact of ignoring BrainPET positioning aids during the course of MR-AC. This extended study confirms the overall prediction accuracy evaluation results of the first evaluation in a larger patient population. Removing datasets affected by metal artifacts from the Atlas-Patch database helped to improve prediction accuracy, although the size of the database was reduced by one half. Significant improvement in prediction speed can be gained at a cost of only slightly reduced accuracy, while further optimizations are still possible.

Web [BibTex]

Mantlik, F., Hofmann, M., Bezrukov, I., Schmidt, H., Kolb, A., Beyer, T., Reimold, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B. Evaluation and Optimization of MR-Based Attenuation Correction Methods in Combined Brain PET/MR 2011(MIC18.M-96), 2011 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC), October 2011 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Atlas- and Pattern Recognition Based Attenuation Correction on Simultaneous Whole-Body PET/MR

Bezrukov, I., Schmidt, H., Mantlik, F., Schwenzer, N., Hofmann, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B.

2011(MIC18.M-116), 2011 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC), October 2011 (poster)

Abstract
With the recent availability of clinical whole-body PET/MRI it is possible to evaluate and further develop MR-based attenuation correction methods using simultaneously acquired PET/MR data. We present first results for MRAC on patient data acquired on a fully integrated whole-body PET/MRI (Biograph mMR, Siemens) using our method that applies atlas registration and pattern recognition (ATPR) and compare them to the segmentation-based (SEG) method provided by the manufacturer. The ATPR method makes use of a database of previously aligned pairs of MR-CT volumes to predict attenuation values on a continuous scale. The robustness of the method in presence of MR artifacts was improved by location and size based detection. Lesion to liver and lesion to blood ratios (LLR and LBR) were compared for both methods on 29 iso-contour ROIs in 4 patients. ATPR showed >20% higher LBR and LLR for ROIs in and >7% near osseous tissue. For ROIs in soft tissue, both methods yielded similar ratios with max. differences <6% . For ROIs located within metal artifacts in the MR image, ATPR showed >190% higher LLR and LBR than SEG, where ratios <0.1 occured. For lesions in the neighborhood of artifacts, both ratios were >15% higher for ATPR. If artifacts in MR volumes caused by metal implants are not accounted for in the computation of attenuation maps, they can lead to a strong decrease of lesion to background ratios, even to disappearance of hot spots. Metal implants are likely to occur in the patient collective receiving combined PET/MR scans, of our first 10 patients, 3 had metal implants. Our method is currently able to account for artifacts in the pelvis caused by prostheses. The ability of the ATPR method to account for bone leads to a significant increase of LLR and LBR in osseous tissue, which supports our previous evaluations with combined PET/CT and PET/MR data. For lesions within soft tissue, lesion to background ratios of ATPR and SEG were comparable.

Web [BibTex]

Bezrukov, I., Schmidt, H., Mantlik, F., Schwenzer, N., Hofmann, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B. Atlas- and Pattern Recognition Based Attenuation Correction on Simultaneous Whole-Body PET/MR 2011(MIC18.M-116), 2011 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference (NSS-MIC), October 2011 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Retrospective blind motion correction of MR images

Loktyushin, A., Nickisch, H., Pohmann, R.

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):498, 28th Annual Scientific Meeting ESMRMB, October 2011 (poster)

Abstract
We present a retrospective method, which significantly reduces ghosting and blurring artifacts due to subject motion. No modifications to the sequence (as in [2, 3]), or the use of additional equipment (as in [1]) are required. Our method iteratively searches for the transformation, that applied to the lines in k-space -- yields the sparsest Laplacian filter output in the spatial domain.

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

Loktyushin, A., Nickisch, H., Pohmann, R. Retrospective blind motion correction of MR images Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):498, 28th Annual Scientific Meeting ESMRMB, October 2011 (poster)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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Model based reconstruction for GRE EPI

Blecher, W., Pohmann, R., Schölkopf, B., Seeger, M.

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):493-494, 28th Annual Scientific Meeting ESMRMB, October 2011 (poster)

Abstract
Model based nonlinear image reconstruction methods for MRI [3] are at the heart of modern reconstruction techniques (e.g.compressed sensing [6]). In general, models are expressed as a matrix equation where y and u are column vectors of k-space and image data, X model matrix and e independent noise. However, solving the corresponding linear system is not tractable. Therefore fast nonlinear algorithms that minimize a function wrt.the unknown image are the method of choice: In this work a model for gradient echo EPI, is proposed that incorporates N/2 Ghost correction and correction for field inhomogeneities. In addition to reconstruction from full data, the model allows for sparse reconstruction, joint estimation of image, field-, and relaxation-map (like [5,8] for spiral imaging), and improved N/2 ghost correction.

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

Blecher, W., Pohmann, R., Schölkopf, B., Seeger, M. Model based reconstruction for GRE EPI Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):493-494, 28th Annual Scientific Meeting ESMRMB, October 2011 (poster)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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Simultaneous multimodal imaging of patients with bronchial carcinoma in a whole body MR/PET system

Brendle, C., Sauter, A., Schmidt, H., Schraml, C., Bezrukov, I., Martirosian, P., Hetzel, J., Müller, M., Claussen, C., Schwenzer, N., Pfannenberg, C.

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):141, 28th annual scientific meeting of the European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRB), October 2011 (poster)

Abstract
Purpose/Introduction: Lung cancer is among the most frequent cancers (1). Exact determination of tumour extent and viability is crucial for adequate therapy guidance. [18F]-FDG-PET allows accurate staging and the evaluation of therapy response based on glucose metabolism. Diffusion weighted MRI (DWI) is another promising tool for the evaluation of tumour viability (2,3). The aim of the study was the simultaneous PET-MR acquisition in lung cancer patients and correlation of PET and MR data. Subjects and Methods: Seven patients (age 38-73 years, mean 61 years) with highly suspected or known bronchial carcinoma were examined. First, a [18F]-FDG-PET/CT was performed (injected dose: 332-380 MBq). Subsequently, patients were examined at the whole-body MR/PET (Siemens Biograph mMR). The MRI is a modified 3T Verio whole body system with a magnet bore of 60 cm (max. amplitude gradients 45 mT/m, max. slew rate 200 T/m/s). Concerning the PET, the whole-body MR/PET system comprises 56 detector cassettes with a 59.4 cm transaxial and 25.8 cm axial FoV. The following parameters for PET acquisition were applied: 2 bed positions, 6 min/bed with an average uptake time of 124 min after injection (range: 110-143 min). The attenuation correction of PET data was conducted with a segmentation-based method provided by the manufacturer. Acquired PET data were reconstructed with an iterative 3D OSEM algorithm using 3 iterations and 21 subsets, Gaussian filter of 3 mm. DWI MR images were recorded simultaneously for each bed using two b-values (0/800 s/mm2). SUVmax and ADCmin were assessed in a ROI analysis. The following ratios were calculated: SUVmax(tumor)/SUVmean(liver) and ADCmin(tumor)/ADCmean(muscle). Correlation between SUV and ADC was analyzed (Pearson’s correlation). Results: Diagnostic scans could be obtained in all patients with good tumour delineation. The spatial matching of PET and DWI data was very exact. Most tumours showed a pronounced FDG-uptake in combination with decreased ADC values. Significant correlation was found between SUV and ADC ratios (r = -0.87, p = 0.0118). Discussion/Conclusion: Simultaneous MR/PET imaging of lung cancer is feasible. The whole-body MR/PET system can provide complementary information regarding tumour viability and cellularity which could facilitate a more profound tumour characterization. Further studies have to be done to evaluate the importance of these parameters for therapy decisions and monitoring

Web DOI [BibTex]

Brendle, C., Sauter, A., Schmidt, H., Schraml, C., Bezrukov, I., Martirosian, P., Hetzel, J., Müller, M., Claussen, C., Schwenzer, N., Pfannenberg, C. Simultaneous multimodal imaging of patients with bronchial carcinoma in a whole body MR/PET system Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine, 24(Supplement 1):141, 28th annual scientific meeting of the European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRB), October 2011 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Support Vector Machines for finding deletions and short insertions using paired-end short reads

Grimm, D., Hagmann, J., König, D., Weigel, D., Borgwardt, KM.

International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB), 2011 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Grimm, D., Hagmann, J., König, D., Weigel, D., Borgwardt, KM. Support Vector Machines for finding deletions and short insertions using paired-end short reads International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB), 2011 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Statistical estimation for optimization problems on graphs

Langovoy, M., Sra, S.

Empirical Inference Symposium, 2011 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Transfer Learning with Copulas

Lopez-Paz, D., Hernandez-Lobato, J.

Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2011 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

Lopez-Paz, D., Hernandez-Lobato, J. Transfer Learning with Copulas Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2011 (poster)

PDF [BibTex]

2006

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Some observations on the pedestal effect or dipper function

Henning, B., Wichmann, F.

Journal of Vision, 6(13):50, 2006 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The pedestal effect is the large improvement in the detectabilty of a sinusoidal “signal” grating observed when the signal is added to a masking or “pedestal” grating of the same spatial frequency, orientation, and phase. We measured the pedestal effect in both broadband and notched noise - noise from which a 1.5-octave band centred on the signal frequency had been removed. Although the pedestal effect persists in broadband noise, it almost disappears in the notched noise. Furthermore, the pedestal effect is substantial when either high- or low-pass masking noise is used. We conclude that the pedestal effect in the absence of notched noise results principally from the use of information derived from channels with peak sensitivities at spatial frequencies different from that of the signal and pedestal. The spatial-frequency components of the notched noise above and below the spatial frequency of the signal and pedestal prevent the use of information about changes in contrast carried in channels tuned to spatial frequencies that are very much different from that of the signal and pedestal. Thus the pedestal or dipper effect measured without notched noise is not a characteristic of individual spatial-frequency tuned channels.

Web DOI [BibTex]

2006

Henning, B., Wichmann, F. Some observations on the pedestal effect or dipper function Journal of Vision, 6(13):50, 2006 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2006 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Optimizing Spatial Filters for BCI: Margin- and Evidence-Maximization Approaches

Farquhar, J., Hill, N., Schölkopf, B.

Challenging Brain-Computer Interfaces: MAIA Workshop 2006, pages: 1, November 2006 (poster)

Abstract
We present easy-to-use alternatives to the often-used two-stage Common Spatial Pattern + classifier approach for spatial filtering and classification of Event-Related Desychnronization signals in BCI. We report two algorithms that aim to optimize the spatial filters according to a criterion more directly related to the ability of the algorithms to generalize to unseen data. Both are based upon the idea of treating the spatial filter coefficients as hyperparameters of a kernel or covariance function. We then optimize these hyper-parameters directly along side the normal classifier parameters with respect to our chosen learning objective function. The two objectives considered are margin maximization as used in Support-Vector Machines and the evidence maximization framework used in Gaussian Processes. Our experiments assessed generalization error as a function of the number of training points used, on 9 BCI competition data sets and 5 offline motor imagery data sets measured in Tubingen. Both our approaches sho w consistent improvements relative to the commonly used CSP+linear classifier combination. Strikingly, the improvement is most significant in the higher noise cases, when either few trails are used for training, or with the most poorly performing subjects. This a reversal of the usual "rich get richer" effect in the development of CSP extensions, which tend to perform best when the signal is strong enough to accurately find their additional parameters. This makes our approach particularly suitable for clinical application where high levels of noise are to be expected.

PDF PDF [BibTex]

Farquhar, J., Hill, N., Schölkopf, B. Optimizing Spatial Filters for BCI: Margin- and Evidence-Maximization Approaches Challenging Brain-Computer Interfaces: MAIA Workshop 2006, pages: 1, November 2006 (poster)

PDF PDF [BibTex]

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Learning Eye Movements

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

Sensory Coding And The Natural Environment, 2006, pages: 1, September 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The human visual system samples images through saccadic eye movements which rapidly change the point of fixation. Although the selection of eye movement targets depends on numerous top-down mechanisms, a number of recent studies have shown that low-level image features such as local contrast or edges play an important role. These studies typically used predefined image features which were afterwards experimentally verified. Here, we follow a complementary approach: instead of testing a set of candidate image features, we infer these hypotheses from the data, using methods from statistical learning. To this end, we train a non-linear classifier on fixated vs. randomly selected image patches without making any physiological assumptions. The resulting classifier can be essentially characterized by a nonlinear combination of two center-surround receptive fields. We find that the prediction performance of this simple model on our eye movement data is indistinguishable from the physiologically motivated model of Itti &amp; Koch (2000) which is far more complex. In particular, we obtain a comparable performance without using any multi-scale representations, long-range interactions or oriented image features.

Web [BibTex]

Kienzle, W., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M. Learning Eye Movements Sensory Coding And The Natural Environment, 2006, pages: 1, September 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Classification of natural scenes: Critical features revisited

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

Journal of Vision, 6(6):561, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Abstract
Human observers are capable of detecting animals within novel natural scenes with remarkable speed and accuracy. Despite the seeming complexity of such decisions it has been hypothesized that a simple global image feature, the relative abundance of high spatial frequencies at certain orientations, could underly such fast image classification (A. Torralba & A. Oliva, Network: Comput. Neural Syst., 2003). We successfully used linear discriminant analysis to classify a set of 11.000 images into “animal” and “non-animal” images based on their individual amplitude spectra only (Drewes, Wichmann, Gegenfurtner VSS 2005). We proceeded to sort the images based on the performance of our classifier, retaining only the best and worst classified 400 images (“best animals”, “best distractors” and “worst animals”, “worst distractors”). We used a Go/No-go paradigm to evaluate human performance on this subset of our images. Both reaction time and proportion of correctly classified images showed a significant effect of classification difficulty. Images more easily classified by our algorithm were also classified faster and better by humans, as predicted by the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis. We then equated the amplitude spectra of the 400 images, which, by design, reduced algorithmic performance to chance whereas human performance was only slightly reduced (cf. Wichmann, Rosas, Gegenfurtner, VSS 2005). Most importantly, the same images as before were still classified better and faster, suggesting that even in the original condition features other than specifics of the amplitude spectrum made particular images easy to classify, clearly at odds with the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of natural scenes: Critical features revisited Journal of Vision, 6(6):561, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control

Wichmann, F., Henning, B.

Journal of Vision, 6(6):194, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The pedestal or dipper effect is the large improvement in the detectabilty of a sinusoidal grating observed when the signal is added to a pedestal or masking grating having the signal‘s spatial frequency, orientation, and phase. The effect is largest with pedestal contrasts just above the ‘threshold‘ in the absence of a pedestal. We measured the pedestal effect in both broadband and notched masking noise---noise from which a 1.5- octave band centered on the signal and pedestal frequency had been removed. The pedestal effect persists in broadband noise, but almost disappears with notched noise. The spatial-frequency components of the notched noise that lie above and below the spatial frequency of the signal and pedestal prevent the use of information about changes in contrast carried in channels tuned to spatial frequencies that are very much different from that of the signal and pedestal. We conclude that the pedestal effect in the absence of notched noise results principally from the use of information derived from channels with peak sensitivities at spatial frequencies that are different from that of the signal and pedestal. Thus the pedestal or dipper effect is not a characteristic of individual spatial-frequency tuned channels.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, B. The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control Journal of Vision, 6(6):194, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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The Pedestal Effect is Caused by Off-Frequency Looking, not Nonlinear Transduction or Contrast Gain-Control

Wichmann, F., Henning, G.

9, pages: 174, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The pedestal or dipper effect is the large improvement in the detectability of a sinusoidal grating observed when the signal is added to a pedestal or masking grating having the signal‘s spatial frequency, orientation, and phase. The effect is largest with pedestal contrasts just above the ‘threshold’ in the absence of a pedestal. We measured the pedestal effect in both broadband and notched masking noise---noise from which a 1.5-octave band centered on the signal and pedestal frequency had been removed. The pedestal effect persists in broadband noise, but almost disappears with notched noise. The spatial-frequency components of the notched noise that lie above and below the spatial frequency of the signal and pedestal prevent the use of information about changes in contrast carried in channels tuned to spatial frequencies that are very much different from that of the signal and pedestal. We conclude that the pedestal effect in the absence of notched noise results principally from the use of information derived from channels with peak sensitivities at spatial frequencies that are different from that of the signal and pedestal. Thus the pedestal or dipper effect is not a characteristic of individual spatial-frequency tuned channels.

Web [BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, G. The Pedestal Effect is Caused by Off-Frequency Looking, not Nonlinear Transduction or Contrast Gain-Control 9, pages: 174, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Efficient tests for the deconvolution hypothesis

Langovoy, M.

Workshop on Statistical Inverse Problems, March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Langovoy, M. Efficient tests for the deconvolution hypothesis Workshop on Statistical Inverse Problems, March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Classification of Natural Scenes: Critical Features Revisited

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

9, pages: 92, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Abstract
Human observers are capable of detecting animals within novel natural scenes with remarkable speed and accuracy. Despite the seeming complexity of such decisions it has been hypothesized that a simple global image feature, the relative abundance of high spatial frequencies at certain orientations, could underly such fast image classification [1]. We successfully used linear discriminant analysis to classify a set of 11.000 images into “animal” and “non-animal” images based on their individual amplitude spectra only [2]. We proceeded to sort the images based on the performance of our classifier, retaining only the best and worst classified 400 images ("best animals", "best distractors" and "worst animals", "worst distractors"). We used a Go/No-go paradigm to evaluate human performance on this subset of our images. Both reaction time and proportion of correctly classified images showed a significant effect of classification difficulty. Images more easily classified by our algorithm were also classified faster and better by humans, as predicted by the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis. We then equated the amplitude spectra of the 400 images, which, by design, reduced algorithmic performance to chance whereas human performance was only slightly reduced [3]. Most importantly, the same images as before were still classified better and faster, suggesting that even in the original condition features other than specifics of the amplitude spectrum made particular images easy to classify, clearly at odds with the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis.

Web [BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of Natural Scenes: Critical Features Revisited 9, pages: 92, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Factorial Coding of Natural Images: How Effective are Linear Models in Removing Higher-Order Dependencies?

Bethge, M.

9, pages: 90, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The performance of unsupervised learning models for natural images is evaluated quantitatively by means of information theory. We estimate the gain in statistical independence (the multi-information reduction) achieved with independent component analysis (ICA), principal component analysis (PCA), zero-phase whitening, and predictive coding. Predictive coding is translated into the transform coding framework, where it can be characterized by the constraint of a triangular filter matrix. A randomly sampled whitening basis and the Haar wavelet are included into the comparison as well. The comparison of all these methods is carried out for different patch sizes, ranging from 2x2 to 16x16 pixels. In spite of large differences in the shape of the basis functions, we find only small differences in the multi-information between all decorrelation transforms (5% or less) for all patch sizes. Among the second-order methods, PCA is optimal for small patch sizes and predictive coding performs best for large patch sizes. The extra gain achieved with ICA is always less than 2%. In conclusion, the `edge filters‘ found with ICA lead only to a surprisingly small improvement in terms of its actual objective.

Web [BibTex]

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Classification of natural scenes: critical features revisited

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

Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 251, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of natural scenes: critical features revisited Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 251, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: combination is sensitive to reliability but not statistically optimal

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

Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP 2006), 48, pages: 80, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

Rosas, P., Wagemans, J., Ernst, M., Wichmann, F. Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: combination is sensitive to reliability but not statistically optimal Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP 2006), 48, pages: 80, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Ähnlichkeitsmasse in Modellen zur Kategorienbildung

Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F.

Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 223, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F. Ähnlichkeitsmasse in Modellen zur Kategorienbildung Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 223, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control

Wichmann, F., Henning, B.

Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 205, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, B. The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 205, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

2003

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Natural Actor-Critic

Peters, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S.

NIPS Workshop " Planning for the Real World: The promises and challenges of dealing with uncertainty", December 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

2003

Peters, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S. Natural Actor-Critic NIPS Workshop " Planning for the Real World: The promises and challenges of dealing with uncertainty", December 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: Measuring the effect of texture type on cue combination

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

Journal of Vision, 3(12):26, 2003 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2003 (poster)

Abstract
In a number of models of depth cue combination the depth percept is constructed via a weighted average combination of independent depth estimations. The influence of each cue in such average depends on the reliability of the source of information. (Young, Landy, & Maloney, 1993; Ernst & Banks, 2002.) In particular, Ernst & Banks (2002) formulate the combination performed by the human brain as that of the minimum variance unbiased estimator that can be constructed from the available cues. Using slant discrimination and slant judgment via probe adjustment as tasks, we have observed systematic differences in performance of human observers when a number of different types of textures were used as cue to slant (Rosas, Wichmann & Wagemans, 2003). If the depth percept behaves as described above, our measurements of the slopes of the psychometric functions provide the predicted weights for the texture cue for the ranked texture types. We have combined these texture types with object motion but the obtained results are difficult to reconcile with the unbiased minimum variance estimator model (Rosas & Wagemans, 2003). This apparent failure of such model might be explained by the existence of a coupling of texture and motion, violating the assumption of independence of cues. Hillis, Ernst, Banks, & Landy (2002) have shown that while for between-modality combination the human visual system has access to the single-cue information, for within-modality combination (visual cues: disparity and texture) the single-cue information is lost, suggesting a coupling between these cues. Then, in the present study we combine the different texture types with haptic information in a slant discrimination task, to test whether in the between-modality condition the texture cue and the haptic cue to slant are combined as predicted by an unbiased, minimum variance estimator model.

Web DOI [BibTex]

Rosas, P., Wichmann, F., Ernst, M., Wagemans, J. Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: Measuring the effect of texture type on cue combination Journal of Vision, 3(12):26, 2003 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2003 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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A unifying computational framework for optimization and dynamic systemsapproaches to motor control

Mohajerian, P., Peters, J., Ijspeert, A., Schaal, S.

10th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2003), 10, pages: 1, May 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

Mohajerian, P., Peters, J., Ijspeert, A., Schaal, S. A unifying computational framework for optimization and dynamic systemsapproaches to motor control 10th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2003), 10, pages: 1, May 2003 (poster)

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A Unifying Computational Framework for Optimization and Dynamic Systems Approaches to Motor Control

Mohajerian, P., Peters, J., Ijspeert, A., Schaal, S.

13th Annual Neural Control of Movement Meeting 2003, 13, pages: 1, April 2003 (poster)

[BibTex]

Mohajerian, P., Peters, J., Ijspeert, A., Schaal, S. A Unifying Computational Framework for Optimization and Dynamic Systems Approaches to Motor Control 13th Annual Neural Control of Movement Meeting 2003, 13, pages: 1, April 2003 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Phase Information and the Recognition of Natural Images

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

6, pages: 138, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

Abstract
Fourier phase plays an important role in determining image structure. For example, when the phase spectrum of an image showing a ower is swapped with the phase spectrum of an image showing a tank, then we will usually perceive a tank in the resulting image, even though the amplitude spectrum is still that of the ower. Also, when the phases of an image are randomly swapped across frequencies, the resulting image becomes impossible to recognize. Our goal was to evaluate the e ect of phase manipulations in a more quantitative manner. On each trial subjects viewed two images of natural scenes. The subject had to indicate which one of the two images contained an animal. The spectra of the images were manipulated by adding random phase noise at each frequency. The phase noise was uniformly distributed in the interval [;+], where  was varied between 0 degree and 180 degrees. Image pairs were displayed for 100 msec. Subjects were remarkably resistant to the addition of phase noise. Even with [120; 120] degree noise, subjects still were at a level of 75% correct. The introduction of phase noise leads to a reduction of image contrast. Subjects were slightly better than a simple prediction based on this contrast reduction. However, when contrast response functions were measured in the same experimental paradigm, we found that performance in the phase noise experiment was signi cantly lower than that predicted by the corresponding contrast reduction.

Web [BibTex]

Braun, D., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Phase Information and the Recognition of Natural Images 6, pages: 138, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Constraints measures and reproduction of style in robot imitation learning

Bakir, GH., Ilg, W., Franz, MO., Giese, M.

6, pages: 70, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

Abstract
Imitation learning is frequently discussed as a method for generating complex behaviors in robots by imitating human actors. The kinematic and the dynamic properties of humans and robots are typically quite di erent, however. For this reason observed human trajectories cannot be directly transferred to robots, even if their geometry is humanoid. Instead the human trajectory must be approximated by trajectories that can be realized by the robot. During this approximation deviations from the human trajectory may arise that change the style of the executed movement. Alternatively, the style of the movement might be well reproduced, but the imitated trajectory might be suboptimal with respect to di erent constraint measures from robotics control, leading to non-robust behavior. Goal of the presented work is to quantify this trade-o between \imitation quality" and constraint compatibility for the imitation of complex writing movements. In our experiment, we used trajectory data from human writing movements (see the abstract of Ilg et al. in this volume). The human trajectories were mapped onto robot trajectories by minimizing an error measure that integrates constraints that are important for the imitation of movement style and a regularizing constraint that ensures smooth joint trajectories with low velocities. In a rst experiment, both the end-e ector position and the shoulder angle of the robot were optimized in order to achieve good imitation together with accurate control of the end-e ector position. In a second experiment only the end-e ector trajectory was imitated whereas the motion of the elbow joint was determined using the optimal inverse kinematic solution for the robot. For both conditions di erent constraint measures (dexterity and relative jointlimit distances) and a measure for imitation quality were assessed. By controling the weight of the regularization term we can vary continuously between robot behavior optimizing imitation quality, and behavior minimizing joint velocities.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Bakir, GH., Ilg, W., Franz, MO., Giese, M. Constraints measures and reproduction of style in robot imitation learning 6, pages: 70, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

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Study of Human Classification using Psychophysics and Machine Learning

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

6, pages: 149, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), Febuary 2003 (poster)

Abstract
We attempt to reach a better understanding of classi cation in humans using both psychophysical and machine learning techniques. In our psychophysical paradigm the stimuli presented to the human subjects are modi ed using machine learning algorithms according to their responses. Frontal views of human faces taken from a processed version of the MPI face database are employed for a gender classi cation task. The processing assures that all heads have same mean intensity, same pixel-surface area and are centered. This processing stage is followed by a smoothing of the database in order to eliminate, as much as possible, scanning artifacts. Principal Component Analysis is used to obtain a low-dimensional representation of the faces in the database. A subject is asked to classify the faces and experimental parameters such as class (i.e. female/male), con dence ratings and reaction times are recorded. A mean classi cation error of 14.5% is measured and, on average, 0.5 males are classi ed as females and 21.3females as males. The mean reaction time for the correctly classi ed faces is 1229 +- 252 [ms] whereas the incorrectly classi ed faces have a mean reaction time of 1769 +- 304 [ms] showing that the reaction times increase with the subject's classi- cation error. Reaction times are also shown to decrease with increasing con dence, both for the correct and incorrect classi cations. Classi cation errors, reaction times and con dence ratings are then correlated to concepts of machine learning such as separating hyperplane obtained when considering Support Vector Machines, Relevance Vector Machines, boosted Prototype and K-means Learners. Elements near the separating hyperplane are found to be classi ed with more errors than those away from it. In addition, the subject's con dence increases when moving away from the hyperplane. A preliminary analysis on the available small number of subjects indicates that K-means classi cation seems to re ect the subject's classi cation behavior best. The above learnersare then used to generate \special" elements, or representations, of the low-dimensional database according to the labels given by the subject. A memory experiment follows where the representations are shown together with faces seen or unseen during the classi cation experiment. This experiment aims to assess the representations by investigating whether some representations, or special elements, are classi ed as \seen before" despite that they never appeared in the classi cation experiment, possibly hinting at their use during human classi cation.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Graf, A., Wichmann, F., Bülthoff, H., Schölkopf, B. Study of Human Classification using Psychophysics and Machine Learning 6, pages: 149, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), Febuary 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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A Representation of Complex Movement Sequences Based on Hierarchical Spatio-Temporal Correspondence for Imitation Learning in Robotics

Ilg, W., Bakir, GH., Franz, MO., Giese, M.

6, pages: 74, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

Abstract
Imitation learning of complex movements has become a popular topic in neuroscience, as well as in robotics. A number of conceptual as well as practical problems are still unsolved. One example is the determination of the aspects of movements which are relevant for imitation. Problems concerning the movement representation are twofold: (1) The movement characteristics of observed movements have to be transferred from the perceptual level to the level of generated actions. (2) Continuous spaces of movements with variable styles have to be approximated based on a limited number of learned example sequences. Therefore, one has to use representation with a high generalisation capability. We present methods for the representation of complex movement sequences that addresses these questions in the context of the imitation learning of writing movements using a robot arm with human-like geometry. For the transfer of complex movements from perception to action we exploit a learning-based method that represents complex action sequences by linear combination of prototypical examples (Ilg and Giese, BMCV 2002). The method of hierarchical spatio-temporal morphable models (HSTMM) decomposes action sequences automatically into movement primitives. These primitives are modeled by linear combinations of a small number of learned example trajectories. The learned spatio-temporal models are suitable for the analysis and synthesis of long action sequences, which consist of movement primitives with varying style parameters. The proposed method is illustrated by imitation learning of complex writing movements. Human trajectories were recorded using a commercial motion capture system (VICON). In the rst step the recorded writing sequences are decomposed into movement primitives. These movement primitives can be analyzed and changed in style by de ning linear combinations of prototypes with di erent linear weight combinations. Our system can imitate writing movements of di erent actors, synthesize new writing styles and can even exaggerate the writing movements of individual actors. Words and writing movements of the robot look very natural, and closely match the natural styles. These preliminary results makes the proposed method promising for further applications in learning-based robotics. In this poster we focus on the acquisition of the movement representation (identi cation and segmentation of movement primitives, generation of new writing styles by spatio-temporal morphing). The transfer of the generated writing movements to the robot considering the given kinematic and dynamic constraints is discussed in Bakir et al (this volume).

PDF Web [BibTex]

Ilg, W., Bakir, GH., Franz, MO., Giese, M. A Representation of Complex Movement Sequences Based on Hierarchical Spatio-Temporal Correspondence for Imitation Learning in Robotics 6, pages: 74, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot, R. Ulrich, F.A. Wichmann), 6. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2003 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Models of contrast transfer as a function of presentation time and spatial frequency.

Wichmann, F.

2003 (poster)

Abstract
Understanding contrast transduction is essential for understanding spatial vision. Using standard 2AFC contrast discrimination experiments conducted using a carefully calibrated display we previously showed that the shape of the threshold versus (pedestal) contrast (TvC) curve changes with presentation time and the performance level defined as threshold (Wichmann, 1999; Wichmann & Henning, 1999). Additional experiments looked at the change of the TvC curve with spatial frequency (Bird, Henning & Wichmann, 2002), and at how to constrain the parameters of models of contrast processing (Wichmann, 2002). Here I report modelling results both across spatial frequency and presentation time. An extensive model-selection exploration was performed using Bayesian confidence regions for the fitted parameters as well as cross-validation methods. Bird, C.M., G.B. Henning and F.A. Wichmann (2002). Contrast discrimination with sinusoidal gratings of different spatial frequency. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 19, 1267-1273. Wichmann, F.A. (1999). Some aspects of modelling human spatial vision: contrast discrimination. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Oxford. Wichmann, F.A. & Henning, G.B. (1999). Implications of the Pedestal Effect for Models of Contrast-Processing and Gain-Control. OSA Annual Meeting Program, 62. Wichmann, F.A. (2002). Modelling Contrast Transfer in Spatial Vision [Abstract]. Journal of Vision, 2, 7a.

[BibTex]

2000

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Contrast discrimination using periodic pulse trains

Wichmann, F., Henning, G.

pages: 74, 3. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2000 (poster)

Abstract
Understanding contrast transduction is essential for understanding spatial vision. Previous research (Wichmann et al. 1998; Wichmann, 1999; Henning and Wichmann, 1999) has demonstrated the importance of high contrasts to distinguish between alternative models of contrast discrimination. However, the modulation transfer function of the eye imposes large contrast losses on stimuli, particularly for stimuli of high spatial frequency, making high retinal contrasts difficult to obtain using sinusoidal gratings. Standard 2AFC contrast discrimination experiments were conducted using periodic pulse trains as stimuli. Given our Mitsubishi display we achieve stimuli with up to 160% contrast at the fundamental frequency. The shape of the threshold versus (pedestal) contrast (TvC) curve using pulse trains shows the characteristic dipper shape, i.e. contrast discrimination is sometimes “easier” than detection. The rising part of the TvC function has the same slope as that measured for contrast discrimination using sinusoidal gratings of the same frequency as the fundamental. Periodic pulse trains offer the possibility to explore the visual system’s properties using high retinal contrasts. Thus they might prove useful in tasks other than contrast discrimination. Second, at least for high spatial frequencies (8 c/deg) it appears that contrast discrimination using sinusoids and periodic pulse trains results in virtually identical TvC functions, indicating a lack of probability summation. Further implications of these results are discussed.

Web [BibTex]

2000

Wichmann, F., Henning, G. Contrast discrimination using periodic pulse trains pages: 74, 3. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2000 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Subliminale Darbietung verkehrsrelevanter Information in Kraftfahrzeugen

Staedtgen, M., Hahn, S., Franz, MO., Spitzer, M.

pages: 98, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot), 3. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2000 (poster)

Abstract
Durch moderne Bildverarbeitungstechnologien ist es m{\"o}glich, in Kraftfahrzeugen bestimmte kritische Verkehrssituationen automatisch zu erkennen und den Fahrer zu warnen bzw. zu informieren. Ein Problem ist dabei die Darbietung der Ergebnisse, die den Fahrer m{\"o}glichst wenig belasten und seine Aufmerksamkeit nicht durch zus{\"a}tzliche Warnleuchten oder akustische Signale vom Verkehrsgeschehen ablenken soll. In einer Reihe von Experimenten wurde deshalb untersucht, ob subliminal dargebotene, das heißt nicht bewußt wahrgenommene, verkehrsrelevante Informationen verhaltenswirksam werden und zur Informations{\"u}bermittlung an den Fahrer genutzt werden k{\"o}nnen. In einem Experiment zur semantischen Bahnung konnte mit Hilfe einer lexikalischen Entscheidungsaufgabe gezeigt werden, daß auf den Straßenverkehr bezogene Worte schneller verarbeitet werden, wenn vorher ein damit in Zusammenhang stehendes Bild eines Verkehrsschildes subliminal pr{\"a}sentiert wurde. Auch bei parafovealer Darbietung der subliminalen Stimuli wurde eine Beschleunigung erzielt. In einer visuellen Suchaufgabe wurden in Bildern realer Verkehrssituationen Verkehrszeichen schneller entdeckt, wenn das Bild des Verkehrszeichens vorher subliminal dargeboten wurde. In beiden Experimenten betrug die Pr{\"a}sentationszeit f{\"u}r die Hinweisreize 17 ms, zus{\"a}tzlich wurde durch Vorw{\"a}rts- und R{\"u}ckw{\"a}rtsmaskierung die bewußteWahrnehmung verhindert. Diese Laboruntersuchungen zeigten, daß sich auch im Kontext des Straßenverkehrs Beschleunigungen der Informationsverarbeitung durch subliminal dargebotene Stimuli erreichen lassen. In einem dritten Experiment wurde die Darbietung eines subliminalen Hinweisreizes auf die Reaktionszeit beim Bremsen in einem realen Fahrversuch untersucht. Die Versuchspersonen (n=17) sollten so schnell wie m{\"o}glich bremsen, wenn die Bremsleuchten eines im Abstand von 12-15 m voran fahrenden Fahrzeuges aufleuchteten. In 50 von insgesamt 100 Durchg{\"a}ngen wurde ein subliminaler Stimulus (zwei rote Punkte mit einem Zentimeter Durchmesser und zehn Zentimeter Abstand) 150 ms vor Aufleuchten der Bremslichter pr{\"a}sentiert. Die Darbietung erfolgte durch ein im Auto an Stelle des Tachometers integriertes TFT-LCD Display. Im Vergleich zur Reaktion ohne subliminalen Stimulus verk{\"u}rzte sich die Reaktionszeit dadurch signifikant um 51 ms. In den beschriebenen Experimenten konnte gezeigt werden, daß die subliminale Darbietung verkehrsrelevanter Information auch in Kraftfahrzeugen verhaltenswirksam werden kann. In Zukunft k{\"o}nnte durch die Kombination der online-Bildverarbeitung im Kraftfahrzeug mit subliminaler Darbietung der Ergebnisse eine Erh{\"o}hung der Verkehrssicherheit und des Komforts erreicht werden.

Web [BibTex]

Staedtgen, M., Hahn, S., Franz, MO., Spitzer, M. Subliminale Darbietung verkehrsrelevanter Information in Kraftfahrzeugen pages: 98, (Editors: H.H. Bülthoff, K.R. Gegenfurtner, H.A. Mallot), 3. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK), February 2000 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

1998

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Masking by plaid patterns: effects of presentation time and mask contrast

Wichmann, F., Henning, G.

pages: 115, 1. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK 98), February 1998 (poster)

Abstract
Most current models of early spatial vision comprise of sets of orientation- and spatial-frequency selective filters with our without limited non-linear interactions amongst different subsets of the filters. The performance of human observers and of such models for human spatial vision were compared in experiments using maskers with two spatial frequencies (plaid masks). The detectability of horizontally orientated sinusoidal signals at 3.02 c/deg was measured in standard 2AFC-tasks in the presence of plaid patterns with two-components at the same spatial frequency as the signal but at different orientations (+/- 15, 30, 45, and 75 deg from the signal) and with varying contrasts (1.0, 6.25 and 25.0% contrast). In addition, the temporal envelope of the stimulus presentation was either a rectangular pulse of 19.7 msec duration, or a temporal Hanning window of 1497 msec.Threshold elevation varied with plaid component orientation, peaked +/- 30 deg from the signal where nearly a log unit threshold elevation for the 25.0% contrast plaid was observed. For plaids with 1.0% contrast we observed significant facilitation even with plaids whose components were 75 deg from that of the signal. Elevation factors were somewhat lower for the short stimulus presentation time but were still significant (up to a factor of 5 or 6). Despite of the simple nature of the stimuli employed in this study-sinusoidal signal and plaid masks comprised of only two sinusoids-none of the current models of early spatial vision can fully account for all the data gathered.

Web [BibTex]

1998

Wichmann, F., Henning, G. Masking by plaid patterns: effects of presentation time and mask contrast pages: 115, 1. T{\"u}binger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK 98), February 1998 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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A bootstrap method for testing hypotheses concerning psychometric functions

Hill, N., Wichmann, F.

1998 (poster)

Abstract
Whenever psychometric functions are used to evaluate human performance on some task, it is valuable to examine not only the threshold and slope values estimated from the original data, but also the expected variability in those measures. This allows psychometric functions obtained in two experimental conditions to be compared statistically. We present a method for estimating the variability of thresholds and slopes of psychometric functions. This involves a maximum-likelihood fit to the data using a three-parameter mathematical function, followed by Monte Carlo simulation using the first fit as a generating function for the simulations. The variability of the function's parameters can then be estimated (as shown by Maloney, 1990), as can the variability of the threshold value (Foster & Bischof, 1997). We will show how a simple development of this procedure can be used to test the significance of differences between (a) the thresholds, and (b) the slopes of two psychometric functions. Further, our method can be used to assess the assumptions underlying the original fit, by examining how goodness-of-fit differs in simulation from its original value. In this way data sets can be identified as being either too noisy to be generated by a binomial observer, or significantly "too good to be true." All software is written in MATLAB and is therefore compatible across platforms, with the option of accelerating performance using MATLAB's plug-in binaries, or "MEX" files.

[BibTex]

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Nonlinearities and the pedestal effect

Wichmann, F., Henning, G., Ploghaus, A.

Perception, 27, pages: S86, 1998 (poster)

Abstract
Psychophysical and physiological evidence suggests 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 (Henning, Hertz, and Broadbent, (1975). Vision Res., 15, 887-899). We examined whether the masking results of Henning et al. are consistent with independent channels. We postulated, before the channels, a point non-linearity which would introduce distortion products that might produce the observed interactions between stimuli two octaves apart in spatial frequency. Standard 2-AFC masking experiments determined whether possible distortion products of a 4.185 c/deg masking sinusoid revealed their presence through effects on the detection of a sinusoidal signal at the frequency of the second harmonic of the masker-8.37 c/deg. The signal and masker were horizontally orientated and the signal was in-phase, out-of-phase, or in quadrature with the putative second-order distortion product of the masker. Significant interactions between signal and masker were observed: for a wide range of masker contrasts, signal detection was facilitated by the masking stimulus. However, the shapes of the functions relating detection performance to masker contrast, as well as the effects of relative phase, were inconsistent with the notion that distortion products were responsible for the interactions observed.

[BibTex]

Wichmann, F., Henning, G., Ploghaus, A. Nonlinearities and the pedestal effect Perception, 27, pages: S86, 1998 (poster)

[BibTex]