Stone, J.V. orcid.org/0000-0003-3428-5588, Kerrigan, I. and Porrill, J. (2009) Where is the light? Bayesian perceptual priors for lighting direction. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276 (1663). pp. 1797-1804. ISSN 1471-2954
Abstract
Perception of shaded three-dimensional figures is inherently ambiguous, but this ambiguity can be resolved if the brain assumes that figures are lit from a specific direction. Under the Bayesian framework, the visual system assigns a weighting to each possible direction, and these weightings define a prior probability distribution for light-source direction. Here, we describe a non-parametric maximum-likelihood estimation method for finding the prior distribution for lighting direction. Our results suggest that each observer has a distinct prior distribution, with non-zero values in all directions, but with a peak which indicates observers are biased to expect light to come from above left. The implications of these results for estimating general perceptual priors are discussed.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2009 The Royal Society. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Proceedings Royal Society (B). Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | perception; Bayes; lighting direction |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | James V Stone |
Date Deposited: | 18 May 2010 15:48 |
Last Modified: | 16 Sep 2014 07:02 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.1635 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Royal Society |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rspb.2008.1635 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:10766 |