Speed and accuracy improvements in visual pattern recognition tasks by employing human assistance

Abstract

This study investigates methods of enhancing human-computer interaction in applications of visual pattern recognition where higher accuracy is required than is currently achievable by automated systems, but where there is enough time for a limited amount of human interaction. The first author’s doctoral dissertation research and experiments are summarized here. Within this study the following questions are explored: How do machine capabilities compare to human capabilities in visual pattern recognition tasks in terms of accuracy and speed? Can we improve machine-only accuracy in visual pattern recognition tasks? Should we employ human assistance in the feature extraction process? Finally, human assistance is explored in color and shape/contour recognition within a machine visual pattern recognition framework.