title: Recognizing faces defined by texture gradients.
abstract: Texture gradients can reveal surface orientation in a manner similar to shape from shading, and therefore provide an important cue for object recognition. In this study, we tested whether a complex 3-D object, such as a face, can be identified from texture gradients alone. The stimuli were laser-scanned faces for which the texture element was a fractal-noise pattern mapped onto the 3-D surface. An eight-alternative forced choice task was used in which participants matched a face defined by texture gradients to one of eight faces defined by shape from shading (Experiment 1) or by texture gradients (Experiment 2). On average, participants scored 24% and 18%, respectively, above chance in these experiments. Although this performance was much poorer than the performance based entirely on shape-from-shading stimuli (Experiment 3), the results suggest that texture gradient information may be used to recover surface geometry of complex objects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Hull, England. c.h.liu@hull.ac.uk
authors.forename: Chang Hong
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Charles A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Collin
authors.forename: Reza
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Farivar
authors.forename: Avi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chaudhuri
mesh_terms: D015350:Contrast Sensitivity; D003867:Depth Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005145:Face; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011601:Psychophysics; D014163:Transfer, Psychology