Three-dimensional object recognition is viewpoint dependent

Michael J. TARR*, Pepper WILLIAMS, William G. HAYWARD, Isabel GAUTHIER

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

195 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The human visual system is faced with the computationally difficult problem of achieving object constancy: identifying three-dimensional (3D) objects via two-dimensional (2D) retinal images that may be altered when the same object is seen from different viewpoints1. A widely accepted class of theories holds that we first reconstruct a description of the object's 3D structure from the retinal image, then match this representation to a remembered structural description. If the same structural description is reconstructed from every possible view of an object, object constancy will be obtained. For example, in Biederman's2 oft-cited recognition-by-components (RBC) theory, structural descriptions are composed of sets of simple 3D volumes called geons (Fig. 1), along with the spatial relations in which the geons are placed. Thus a mug is represented in RBC as a noodle attached to the side of a cylinder, and a suitcase as a noodle attached to the top of a brick. The attraction of geons is that, unlike more complex objects, they possess a small set of defining properties that appear in their 2D projections when viewed from almost any position (e.g., all three views of the brick in Fig. 1 include a straight main axis, parallel edges, and a straight cross section). According to the RBC theory, a complex object can therefore be recognized from its constituent geons, which can themselves be recognized from any viewpoint.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)275-277
Number of pages3
JournalNature Neuroscience
Volume1
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 1998
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This research was supported by an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Grant. We thank Jay Servidea and Jaymz Rosoff for their assistance in running the psychophysical studies.

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