Essentially all Computer Vision strategies require initial computation of orientation structure or motion estimation. Although much work has been invested in this subfield, methods have so far been very computationally demanding and/or not very robust. In this paper we present a novel method for computation of orientation tensors for signals of any dimensionality. The method is based on local w...

The Competitive Coding (CompCode) scheme, which extracts and codes the local dominant orientation as features, has been widely used in finger knuckle print (FKP) verification. However, CompCode may lose some valuable information such as multiple orientation and texture of the FKP image. To remedy this drawback, a novel multiple orientation and texture information integration scheme is proposed ...

Elements of a contour are often easier to detect when they possess collinearity, with their local orientations matching the global orientation of the contour. We recently reported attentional modulation of such lateral interactions between a central near-threshold target Gabor patch and flanking high-contrast patches (Freeman et al, 2001 Nature Neuroscience 4 1032-1036). Here, we examined wheth...

Many cross cultural studies have mentioned two distinct forms of thinking, holistic and analytic thought, and argued that one of the crucial differences between them is their attentional focus on focal object and its context. Furthermore, in face recognition studies, it has been replicated that face recognition is a configural process and is fostered by prior global processing orientation. The ...

The extraction of shape from shading has a relatively long history within the field of computer vision. There have been two general classes of algorithm developed: Local algorithms, which attempt to estimate shape from local variations in image intensity, and information propagation algorithms, which attempt to propagate contour information across a shaded surface. Local algorithms, such as Pen...

Perception of global patterns requires the integration of local orientation information across space. The present study examined whether this integration ability declines in older age. We measured contrast thresholds for discriminating the global orientation of a "C" shaped contour against a blank background in younger and older subjects. Performance of younger subjects improved when the elemen...

Local, parallel analysis of shading in an image may be used to infer surface shape without o priori knowledge about the viewed scene. The following has been proven: Given a reasonable assumption about surface smoothness, local analysis of the second derivative of image intensity allows the image-plane component of surface orientation to be determined exactly, and a maximum-likelihood estimate o...

Detection and description of local features are a classical problem in image processing and multimedia content analysis. Based on the inhomogeneity of visual orientation in human visual system, we propose a novel algorithm S-SIFT to detect and describe local image features. In three stages of SSIFT, the information from the least discriminability orientation is omitting. Compared with the stand...

Excitatory synapses arising from local neurons in the cat visual cortex are much more numerous than the thalamocortical synapses, which provide the primary sensory input. Many of these local circuit synapses are involved in the connections between cortical layers, but lateral connections within layers provide a major component of the local circuit synapses. We tested the influence of these late...

The mechanism of nerve orientation in an applied electric field has been investigated using a number of pharmacological agents. Galvanotropism may depend on redistribution within the plasma membrane of integral membrane proteins (IMP); blocking this with concanavalin A inhibited orientation. Orientation may depend also on an influx of Ca2+; Co2+ and La3+ blockade of calcium channels inhibited t...