What are Intermediate-Level Visual Features?

Abstract

The visual system is a graph, not a tree, and intermediate-level structures enjoy a role well beyond that of the intermediate levels of a hierarchy. The chapter argues that an understanding of the intermediate-level Gestalt features requires an understanding of this graph of interactions. The question in the title of this chapter-what is an intermediate-level visual feature- integrates nearly all aspects of visual processing, of neurobiological structure, and of computational vision. Border ownership is a paradigm example of an intermediate-level visual feature. Several of its properties can also be highlighted that allows other intermediate-level features to be identified. First, it involves "action at a distance". Second, notice the inappropriateness of the "receptive field" notion for these constructs. The chapter describes one approach to answer the title question. It starts from an abstract, computational perspective, to establish context, and then connect this with experimental results. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.