RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Visual discrimination of optical material properties: a large-scale study
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 800870
DO 10.1101/800870
A1 Masataka Sawayama
A1 Yoshinori Dobashi
A1 Makoto Okabe
A1 Kenchi Hosokawa
A1 Takuya Koumura
A1 Toni Saarela
A1 Maria Olkkonen
A1 Shin’ya Nishida
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/12/14/800870.abstract
AB Complex visual processing involved in perceiving the object materials can be better elucidated by taking a variety of research approaches. Sharing stimulus and response data is an effective strategy to make the results of different studies directly comparable and can assist researchers with different backgrounds to jump into the field. Here, we constructed a database containing several sets of material images annotated with visual discrimination performance. We created the material images using physically-based computer graphics techniques and conducted psychophysical experiments with them in both laboratory and crowdsourcing settings. The observer’s task was to discriminate materials on one of six dimensions (gloss contrast, gloss distinctness-of-image, translucent vs. opaque, metal vs. plastic, metal vs. glass, and glossy vs. painted). The illumination consistency and object geometry were also varied. We used a non-verbal procedure (an oddity task) applicable for diverse use-cases such as cross-cultural, cross-species, clinical, or developmental studies. Results showed that the material discrimination depended on the illuminations and geometries and that the ability to discriminate the spatial consistency of specular highlights in glossiness perception showed larger individual differences than in other tasks. In addition, analysis of visual features showed that the parameters of higher-order color texture statistics can partially, but not completely, explain task performance. The results obtained through crowdsourcing were highly correlated with those obtained in the laboratory, suggesting that our database can be used even when the experimental conditions are not strictly controlled in the laboratory. Several projects using our dataset are underway.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.