SIMPLE PHYSIOLOGICAL AND STATISTICAL MODEL FOR PERCEPTION OF OBJECTS IN A NOISY IMAGE.
Madison (United States). Nuclear Reactor Lab. Wisconsin Univ., P. R. Moran · 1972
W e recently described1 using raster-.cannedmonoenergetic photon beams t o generate data f o r quantitative i n vivo body measurements.A graphics display terminal can present these data a s an image, and the d i f f i c u l t i e s i n recognizing body structures has lead us t o restudy the long-standing problem of perception of objects and resolving pcwer i n a noisy image.The basic experimental r e s u l t s contained i n the early photographic work of ~o s e , ~ and the TV-display studies of coltman3 and Coltman 4 5,6,7 and Anderson can be expressed i n various ways, but a l l can be i n t e rpreted t o yield a single expression f o r a threshold signal t o noise r a t i o , (s/n), ' I n Eq. ( I ) , C i s the object-background contrast f a c t o r and N i s the average number of perceptible events i n a background area equal t o the object area.W e propose a simple physiological and s t a t i s t i c a l model involving two parameters f o r object perception.Integration of the normal probability d i s t r i b u t i o n function gives the approximate r e l a t i o n exp { ( c N ) ~/ ~ C T r 2 (TI2 a ' F) , where T i s the t o t a l number of distinguishable background t r i a l areas of dimension comparable t o the object which the eye-brain system scans i n the regions adjoining the viewed object.The quantity F i s the average numbe of t r i a l areas whose s t a t i s t i c a l fluctuations give them an appearance a t DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government.Neither the United StatesGovernment nor any agency Thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.