Texture segmentation in natural images: Contribution of higher-order image statistics to psychophysical performance
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Perceptual segmentation of a boundary between two textures is conventionally thought to be based upon differences in their Fourier energy, i.e. in their low-order texture statistics. Most evidence supporting (or contradicting) this idea has arisen from studies using various synthetic texture patterns. But what role, if any, do higher-order texture statistics play in segmenting natural images? Here we extracted high resolution texture regions from monochrome photographs of natural scenes, rich in higher-order statistics. By phase-scrambling these textures, we could remove their high-order statistics, leaving mean luminance and RMS contrast unchanged. Using pairs of natural or phase-scrambled textures, we created RMS-balanced texture quilt boundaries in half-disc stimuli. We also created similar contrast boundaries from individual textures. Employing forced choice judgments of boundary orientation (left- vs. right-oblique), we measured modulation-depth thresholds for both contrast and texture boundaries. If only the low-order statistics are used, then phase-scrambling should have no effect on psychophysical performance. Boundaries between these texture pairs could usually be segregated (thresholds: 35–70%), though in some cases even 100% modulation-depth did not produce reliable performance. In most instances, phase-scrambling made the task impossible. However in a minority of scrambled texture pairs, thresholds were measurable and in some, performance was improved. Contrast boundaries yielded lower modulation-depth thresholds (10–30%) which were impervious to or improved by phase-scrambling, particularly at lower texture contrasts. These results suggest that higher-order texture statistics contribute importantly to boundary segmentation in natural scenes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".