Shape from Contour: Computation and Representation

James H. Elder
2018 Annual Review of Vision Science  
The human visual system reliably extracts shape information from complex natural scenes in spite of noise and fragmentation caused by clutter and occlusions. A fast, feedforward sweep through ventral stream involving mechanisms tuned for orientation, curvature, and local Gestalt principles produces partial shape representations sufficient for simpler discriminative tasks. More complete shape representations may involve recurrent processes that integrate local and global cues. While feedforward
more » ... iscriminative deep neural network models currently produce the best predictions of object selectivity in higher areas of the object pathway, a generative model may be required to account for all aspects of shape perception. Research suggests that a successful model will account for our acute sensitivity to four key perceptual dimensions of shape: topology, symmetry, composition, and deformation.
doi:10.1146/annurev-vision-091517-034110 pmid:30222530 fatcat:mwhcyypwpvehxk5l5i7bc2rkbi