Natural scene and object perception based on statistical image feature: psychophysics and EEG

Abstract

Recent studies have suggested the importance of statistical image features in both natural scene and object recognition, while the spatial layout or shape information is still important. In the present study, to investigate the roles of low- and high-level statistical image features in natural scene and object recognition, we conducted categorization tasks using a wide variety of natural scene and object images, along with two types of synthesized images: Portilla-Simoncelli (PS) synthesized images, which preserve low-level statistical features, and style-synthesized (SS) images, which retain higher-level statistical features. Behavioral experiments revealed that human observers (of either sex) could categorize style-synthesized versions of natural scene and object images with high accuracy. Furthermore, we recorded visual evoked potentials (VEPs) for the original, SS, and PS images and decoded natural scene and object categories using a support vector machine (SVM). Consistent with the behavioral results, natural scene categories were decoded with high accuracy within 200 ms after the stimulus onset. In contrast, object categories were successfully decoded only from VEPs for original images at later latencies. Finally, we examined whether style features could classify natural scene and object categories. The classification accuracy for natural scene categories showed a similar trend to the behavioral data, whereas that for object categories did not align with the behavioral results. Taken together, these findings suggest that although natural scene and object categories can be recognized relatively easily even when layout information is disrupted, the extent to which statistical features contribute to categorization differs between natural scenes and objects. Significance StatementHumans can reliably recognize complex natural scenes and objects. Recent studies have suggested that such recognition may rely on statistical image features, but the extent to which these features contribute to the recognition remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated how well statistical image features account for the perception of natural scenes and objects by conducting psychophysical categorization experiments and EEG decoding analyses. We found that natural scene categories could be reliably recognized based on statistical image features, and this recognition was consistent with neural responses. In contrast, although statistical image features also contributed to object category recognition, their effect appeared to be more limited. Together, these findings highlight the utility of statistical image features in visual perception.