Automated Design of Salient Object Detection Algorithms with Brain Programming

Despite recent improvements in computer vision, artificial visual systems' design is still daunting since an explanation of visual computing algorithms remains elusive. Salient object detection is one problem that is still open due to the difficulty of understanding the brain's inner workings. Progress on this research area follows the traditional path of hand-made designs using neuroscience knowledge. In recent years two different approaches based on genetic programming appear to enhance their technique. One follows the idea of combining previous hand-made methods through genetic programming and fuzzy logic. The other approach consists of improving the inner computational structures of basic hand-made models through artificial evolution. This research work proposes expanding the artificial dorsal stream using a recent proposal to solve salient object detection problems. This approach uses the benefits of the two main aspects of this research area: fixation prediction and detection of salient objects. We decided to apply the fusion of visual saliency and image segmentation algorithms as a template. The proposed methodology discovers several critical structures in the template through artificial evolution. We present results on a benchmark designed by experts with outstanding results in comparison with the state-of-the-art.Comment: 35 pages, 5 figure

Egocentric Spatial Representation in Action and Perception

Neuropsychological findings used to motivate the “two visual systems” hypothesis have been taken to endanger a pair of widely accepted claims about spatial representation in visual experience. The first is the claim that visual experience represents 3-D space around the perceiver using an egocentric frame of reference. The second is the claim that there is a constitutive link between the spatial contents of visual experience and the perceiver’s bodily actions. In this paper, I carefully assess three main sources of evidence for the two visual systems hypothesis and argue that the best interpretation of the evidence is in fact consistent with both claims. I conclude with some brief remarks on the relation between visual consciousness and rational agency

The neuroscience of vision-based grasping: a functional review for computational modeling and bio-inspired robotics

The topic of vision-based grasping is being widely studied using various techniques and with different goals in humans and in other primates. The fundamental related findings are reviewed in this paper, with the aim of providing researchers from different fields, including intelligent robotics and neural computation, a comprehensive but accessible view on the subject. A detailed description of the principal sensorimotor processes and the brain areas involved in them is provided following a functional perspective, in order to make this survey especially useful for computational modeling and bio-inspired robotic application

Characterizing Tool-Selective Areas With Human Neuroimaging

Humans, unlike any other species, use tools to achieve complex goals. New Caledonian Crows, among the best of avian tool-makers, use twigs to retrieve food in crevices, and veined octopuses use coconut shells as shelters. Humans, however, go above and beyond these simple behaviours. Even when compared to orders that are evolutionarily closest to humans such as non-human primates, tool use is indisputably more advanced in humans. Conventionally, neuroimaging researchers who have studied complex tool use in humans do so by presenting pictures of tools and measuring the brain activity evoked by actions potentiated by the tools. This method has revealed tool-selective regions that activate in response to pictures of tools but, critically, also activate in response to real actions with real tools. Though there is overlap between regions that respond to both pictures of tools and to real tool use, it is unclear whether tool pictures are indeed an effective proxy for real tool use. In light of this, the overarching goals of this thesis were, 1) from a methodological perspective, to determine whether different proxies for studying tool use are more effective than using pictures but less technically challenging than using real actions on real tools; and 2) from a theoretical perspective, to determine what these proxies can reveal about tool-related processing, particularly in brain regions involved in visuomotor control. In sum, the results from this thesis revealed, 1) that presenting videos of familiar tool actions is an optimal proxy to study tool use, and 2) that tool-selective regions are areas selective for actions afforded by tools, for the characteristic motion associated with tools, and for familiar tools of which functional associations are well-established. Taken together, this thesis offers support to the notion that tool-selective regions process information with the purpose of predicting upcoming actions and reasoning possible ways to use a tool to interact with a target. In agreement with the affordance perspective, tool-selective regions do so even when there is no intent to act on a tool

Precis of neuroconstructivism: how the brain constructs cognition

Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition proposes a unifying framework for the study of cognitive development that brings together (1) constructivism (which views development as the progressive elaboration of increasingly complex structures), (2) cognitive neuroscience (which aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying behavior), and (3) computational modeling (which proposes formal and explicit specifications of information processing). The guiding principle of our approach is context dependence, within and (in contrast to Marr [1982]) between levels of organization. We propose that three mechanisms guide the emergence of representations: competition, cooperation, and chronotopy; which themselves allow for two central processes: proactivity and progressive specialization. We suggest that the main outcome of development is partial representations, distributed across distinct functional circuits. This framework is derived by examining development at the level of single neurons, brain systems, and whole organisms. We use the terms encellment, embrainment, and embodiment to describe the higher-level contextual influences that act at each of these levels of organization. To illustrate these mechanisms in operation we provide case studies in early visual perception, infant habituation, phonological development, and object representations in infancy. Three further case studies are concerned with interactions between levels of explanation: social development, atypical development and within that, developmental dyslexia. We conclude that cognitive development arises from a dynamic, contextual change in embodied neural structures leading to partial representations across multiple brain regions and timescales, in response to proactively specified physical and social environment