Object Detection Through Exploration With A Foveated Visual Field

We present a foveated object detector (FOD) as a biologically-inspired alternative to the sliding window (SW) approach which is the dominant method of search in computer vision object detection. Similar to the human visual system, the FOD has higher resolution at the fovea and lower resolution at the visual periphery. Consequently, more computational resources are allocated at the fovea and relatively fewer at the periphery. The FOD processes the entire scene, uses retino-specific object detection classifiers to guide eye movements, aligns its fovea with regions of interest in the input image and integrates observations across multiple fixations. Our approach combines modern object detectors from computer vision with a recent model of peripheral pooling regions found at the V1 layer of the human visual system. We assessed various eye movement strategies on the PASCAL VOC 2007 dataset and show that the FOD performs on par with the SW detector while bringing significant computational cost savings.Comment: An extended version of this manuscript was published in PLOS Computational Biology (October 2017) at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.100574

Evolution and Optimality of Similar Neural Mechanisms for Perception and Action during Search

A prevailing theory proposes that the brain's two visual pathways, the ventral and dorsal, lead to differing visual processing and world representations for conscious perception than those for action. Others have claimed that perception and action share much of their visual processing. But which of these two neural architectures is favored by evolution? Successful visual search is life-critical and here we investigate the evolution and optimality of neural mechanisms mediating perception and eye movement actions for visual search in natural images. We implement an approximation to the ideal Bayesian searcher with two separate processing streams, one controlling the eye movements and the other stream determining the perceptual search decisions. We virtually evolved the neural mechanisms of the searchers' two separate pathways built from linear combinations of primary visual cortex receptive fields (V1) by making the simulated individuals' probability of survival depend on the perceptual accuracy finding targets in cluttered backgrounds. We find that for a variety of targets, backgrounds, and dependence of target detectability on retinal eccentricity, the mechanisms of the searchers' two processing streams converge to similar representations showing that mismatches in the mechanisms for perception and eye movements lead to suboptimal search. Three exceptions which resulted in partial or no convergence were a case of an organism for which the targets are equally detectable across the retina, an organism with sufficient time to foveate all possible target locations, and a strict two-pathway model with no interconnections and differential pre-filtering based on parvocellular and magnocellular lateral geniculate cell properties. Thus, similar neural mechanisms for perception and eye movement actions during search are optimal and should be expected from the effects of natural selection on an organism with limited time to search for food that is not equi-detectable across its retina and interconnected perception and action neural pathways

The Accuracy of Saccadic and Perceptual Decisions in Visual Search

Saccadic eye movements during search for a target embedded in noise are suboptimally guided by information about target location (Eckstein et al, 1997, paper presented at ARVO). Our goal was to compare the spatial information used to guide the saccades with that used for the perceptual decision. Three observers were asked to determine the location of a bright disk (diameter 21 min arc) in white noise (signal-to-noise ratio 4.2) from among ten possible locations evenly spaced at 5.9 deg eccentricity. In the first of four conditions, observers used natural eye movements. In the three remaining conditions, observers fixated a central cross at all times. The fixation conditions consisted of three different presentation times (100, 200, 300 ms), each followed by a mask. Eye-position data were collected with a resolution of ∼0.2 deg. In the natural viewing condition, we measured the accuracy with respect to the target and the latency of the first saccade. In the fixation conditions, we discarded trials in which observers broke fixation. Perceptual performance was computed for all conditions. Averaged across observers, the first saccade was correct (closest to the target location) for 56±7 (SD) % of trials (chance 10%) and occurred after a latency of 313±56 ms. Perceptual performance averaged 53±4%, 63±4%, 65±2% correct at 100, 200, and 300 ms, respectively. We conclude that, for the signal-to-noise ratio used, at the time of initiation of the first saccade there is little difference between the amount of information about target location available to the perceptual and saccadic systems. </jats:p

Limited flexibility in the filter underlying saccadic targeting

AbstractThe choice of where to look in a visual scene depends on visual processing of information from potential target locations. We examined to what extent the sampling window, or filter, underlying saccadic eye movements is under flexible control and adjusted to the behavioural task demands. Observers performed a contrast discrimination task with systematic variations in the spatial scale and location of the visual signals: small (σ=0.175°) or large (σ=0.8°) Gaussian signals were presented 4.5°, 6°, or 9° away from central fixation. In experiment 1, we measured the accuracy of the first saccade as a function of target contrast. The efficiency of saccadic targeting decreased with increases in both scale and eccentricity. In experiment 2, the filter underlying saccadic targeting was estimated with the classification image method. We found that the filter (1) had a center-surround organisation, even though the signal was Gaussian; (2) was much too small for the large scale items; (3) remained constant up to the largest measured eccentricity of 9°. The filter underlying the decision of where to look is not fixed, and can be adjusted to the task demands. However, there are clear limits to this flexibility. These limits reflect the coding of visual information by early mechanisms, and the extent to which the neural circuitry involved in programming saccadic eye movements is able to appropriately weigh and combine the outputs from these mechanisms

Thyroid gland invasion in laryngopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma: Prevalence, endoscopic and CT predictors

SummaryObjectivesThe authors studied the prevalence of histological thyroid gland invasion in laryngopharyngeal cancer and the preoperative endoscopic and CT signs predictive of this invasion.Patients and methodsRetrospective study of patients with laryngopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (T3 and T4) treated by total laryngectomy or total laryngopharyngectomy associated with concomitant total thyroidectomy or ipsilateral lobectomy and isthmectomy.ResultsEighty-seven patients were included. Eleven patients (12.6%) presented thyroid gland invasion. Subglottic tumour extension greater than or equal to 10mm (P=0.008) and cricoid cartilage destruction on CT (P=0.001) were statistically correlated with histological thyroid gland invasion. An intact appearance of the laryngeal cartilages on CT was associated with a low probability of thyroid gland invasion.ConclusionThyroid gland invasion must not be underestimated in patients with advanced laryngopharyngeal cancer. Preoperative CT is an essential part of the preoperative work-up. Thyroidectomy must not be performed systematically