16,219 research outputs found
Spatial Facilitation by Color and Luminance Edges: Boundary, Surface, and Attentional Factors
The thresholds of human observers detecting line targets improve significantly when the targets are presented in a spatial context of collinear inducing stimuli. This phenomenon is referred to as 'spatial facilitation', and may reflect the output of long-range interactions between cortical feature detectors. Spatial facilitation has thus far been observed with luminance-defined, achromatic stimuli on achromatic backgrounds. This study compares spatial facilitation with line targets and collinear, edge-like inducers defined by luminance contrast to spatial facilitation with targets and inducers defined by color contrast. The results of a first experiment show that achromatic inducers facilitate the detection of achromatic targets on gray and colored backgrounds, but not the detection of chromatic targets. Chromatic inducers facilitate the detection of chromatic targets on gray and colored backgrounds, but not the detection of achromatic targets. Chromatic spatial facilitation appears to be strongest when inducers and background are isoluminant. The results of a second experiment show that spatial facilitation with chromatic targets and inducers requires a longer exposure duration of the inducers than spatial facilitation with achromatic targets and inducers, which is already fully effective at an inducer exposure of 30 milliseconds only. The findings point towards two separate mechanisms for spatial facilitation with collinear form stimuli: one that operates in the domain of luminance, and one that operates in the domain of color contrast. These results are consistent with neural models of boundary and surface formation which suggest that achromatic and chromatic visual cues are represented on different cortical surface representations that are capable of selectively attracting attention. Multiple copies of these achromatic and chromatic surface representations exist corresponding to different ranges of perceived depth from an observer, and each can attract attention to itself. Color and contrast differences between inducing and test stimuli, and transient responses to inducing stimuli, can cause attention to shift across these surface representations in ways that sometimes enhance and sometimes interfere with target detection.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0409, N00014-95-1-0657
Colour Text Segmentation in Web Images Based on Human Perception
There is a significant need to extract and analyse the text in images on Web documents, for effective indexing, semantic analysis and even presentation by non-visual means (e.g., audio). This paper argues that the challenging segmentation stage for such images benefits from a human perspective of colour perception in preference to RGB colour space analysis. The proposed approach enables the segmentation of text in complex situations such as in the presence of varying colour and texture (characters and background). More precisely, characters are segmented as distinct regions with separate chromaticity and/or lightness by performing a layer decomposition of the image. The method described here is a result of the authorsâ systematic approach to approximate the human colour perception characteristics for the identification of character regions. In this instance, the image is decomposed by performing histogram analysis of Hue and Lightness in the HLS colour space and merging using information on human discrimination of wavelength and luminance
Complete Acyclic Colorings
We study two parameters that arise from the dichromatic number and the
vertex-arboricity in the same way that the achromatic number comes from the
chromatic number. The adichromatic number of a digraph is the largest number of
colors its vertices can be colored with such that every color induces an
acyclic subdigraph but merging any two colors yields a monochromatic directed
cycle. Similarly, the a-vertex arboricity of an undirected graph is the largest
number of colors that can be used such that every color induces a forest but
merging any two yields a monochromatic cycle. We study the relation between
these parameters and their behavior with respect to other classical parameters
such as degeneracy and most importantly feedback vertex sets.Comment: 17 pages, no figure
Object knowledge modulates colour appearance
We investigated the memory colour effect for colour diagnostic artificial objects. Since knowledge about these objects and their colours has been learned in everyday life, these stimuli allow the investigation of the influence of acquired object knowledge on colour appearance. These investigations are relevant for questions about how object and colour information in high-level vision interact as well as for research about the influence of learning and experience on perception in general. In order to identify suitable artificial objects, we developed a reaction time paradigm that measures (subjective) colour diagnosticity. In the main experiment, participants adjusted sixteen such objects to their typical colour as well as to grey. If the achromatic object appears in its typical colour, then participants should adjust it to the opponent colour in order to subjectively perceive it as grey. We found that knowledge about the typical colour influences the colour appearance of artificial objects. This effect was particularly strong along the daylight axis
A note on "Folding wheels and fans."
In S.Gervacio, R.Guerrero and H.Rara, Folding wheels and fans, Graphs and
Combinatorics 18 (2002) 731-737, the authors obtain formulas for the clique
numbers onto which wheels and fans fold. We present an interpolation theorem
which generalizes their theorems 4.2 and 5.2. We show that their formula for
wheels is wrong. We show that for threshold graphs, the achromatic number and
folding number coincides with the chromatic number
Microlensing by Stars
If stars at the lower end of the main sequence are responsible for the
microlensing events observed in the Galactic bulge, then light from the lensing
star contributes to the observed brightness. The background and lensing stars
generally have different colors, and the relative brightness changes during the
microlensing event. Therefore, microlensing light curves are not perfectly
achromatic if hydrogen-burning stars are the lenses. In most cases, the color
shift will be too small to be observable, but we argue that given the current
microlensing rates, it is plausible that a few color-shifted microlensing
events could be observed in the near future, especially if strategies are
optimized to search for them. Although rare, such an event could potentially
provide a wealth of information: Light curves in two bands can be used to
determine the masses and distances of the two stars as well as the transverse
speed of the lensing star. Light curves in additional wavebands could make the
determination more precise.Comment: 11 pages, uuencoded, compressed Postscrip
Broadband achromatic anomalous mirror in near-IR and visible frequency range
The anomalous achromatic mirror operating in near-IR and visible frequency
range was designed using an array of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) resonators. An
incident wave interacting with MIM resonator experiences phase shift that is
equal to the optical path travelled by the gap plasmon, excited by the wave.
The phase gradient along the mirror surface is created through the difference
in plasmons optical paths in resonators of different lengths. In the frequency
region well below the plasma frequency of the metal, the phase gradient is a
linear function of frequency, and thus the mirror operates in achromatic
regime, i.e. reflection angle does not depend on the radiation frequency. Using
silver-air-silver resonators, we predicted that the mirror can steer normally
incident beam to angles as large as 40 with high radiation efficiency
(exceeding 98 ) and small Joule losses (below 10 )
Optical afterglows of gamma-ray bursts: a bimodal distribution?"
The luminosities of the optical afterglows of Gamma Ray Bursts, 12 hours
(rest frame time) after the trigger, show a surprising clustering, with a
minority of events being at a significant smaller luminosity. If real, this
dichotomy would be a crucial clue to understand the nature of optically dark
afterglows, i.e. bursts that are detected in the X-ray band, but not in the
optical. We investigate this issue by studying bursts of the pre-Swift era,
both detected and undetected in the optical. The limiting magnitudes of the
undetected ones are used to construct the probability that a generic bursts is
observed down to a given magnitude limit. Then, by simulating a large number of
bursts with pre-assigned characteristics, we can compare the properties of the
observed optical luminosity distribution with the simulated one. Our results
suggest that the hints of bimodality present in the observed distribution
reflects a real bimodality: either the optical luminosity distributions of
bursts is intrinsically bimodal, or there exists a population of bursts with a
quite significant grey absorption, i.e. wavelength independent extinction. This
population of intrinsically weak or grey-absorbed events can be associated to
dark bursts.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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