Abstract: Invited speaker

Abstract: Latest computer vision architectures use a chain of feedforward computations, mainly optimizing artificial neural networks for very specific tasks. Although their impressive performance (i.e. in saliency) using real image datasets, these models do not follow several biological principles of the human visual system (e.g. feedback and horizontal connections in cortex) and are unable to predict several visual tasks simultaneously. In this study we present biologically plausible computations from the early stages of the human visual system (i.e. retina and lateral geniculate nucleus) and lateral connections in V1. Despite the simplicity of these processes and without any type of training or optimization, simulations of firing-rate dynamics of V1 are able to predict bottom-up visual attention at distinct contexts (shown previously as well to predict visual discomfort, brightness and chromatic induction). We also show functional top-down selection mechanisms as feedback inhibition projections (i.e. prefrontal cortex for search/task-based attention and parietal area for inhibition of return). Distinct saliency model predictions are tested with eye tracking datasets in free-viewing and visual search tasks, using real images and synthetically-generated patterns. Results on predicting saliency and scanpaths show that artificial models do not outperform biologically-inspired ones (specifically for datasets that lack of common endogenous biases found in eye tracking experimentation), as well as, do not correctly predict contrast sensitivities in pop-out stimulus patterns. This work remarks the importance of considering biological principles of the visual system for building models that reproduce this (and any other) visual effects.

Abstract: CoRR abs/1905.04107
The availability and use of egocentric data are rapidly increasing due to the growing use of wearable cameras. Our aim is to study the effect (positive, neutral or negative) of egocentric images or events on an observer. Given egocentric photostreams capturing the wearer's days, we propose a method that aims to assign sentiment to events extracted from egocentric photostreams. Such moments can be candidates to retrieve according to their possibility of representing a positive experience for the camera's wearer. The proposed approach obtained a classification accuracy of 75% on the test set, with a deviation of 8%. Our model makes a step forward opening the door to sentiment recognition in egocentric photostreams.

Abstract: CoRR abs/1907.00856
Skin lesion segmentation in dermoscopic images is a challenge due to their blurry and irregular boundaries. Most of the segmentation approaches based on deep learning are time and memory consuming due to the hundreds of millions of parameters. Consequently, it is difficult to apply them to real dermatoscope devices with limited GPU and memory resources. In this paper, we propose a lightweight and efficient Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) model, called MobileGAN for skin lesion segmentation. More precisely, the MobileGAN combines 1D non-bottleneck factorization networks with position and channel attention modules in a GAN model. The proposed model is evaluated on the test dataset of the ISBI 2017 challenges and the validation dataset of ISIC 2018 challenges. Although the proposed network has only 2.35 millions of parameters, it is still comparable with the state-of-the-art. The experimental results show that our MobileGAN obtains comparable performance with an accuracy of 97.61%.

Abstract: Anticipating the intentions of vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as pedestrians
and cyclists can be critical for performing safe and comfortable driving maneuvers. This is the case for human driving and, therefore, should be taken into account by systems providing any level of driving assistance, i.e. from advanced driver assistant systems (ADAS) to fully autonomous vehicles (AVs). In this PhD work, we show how the latest advances on monocular vision-based human pose estimation, i.e. those relying on deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), enable to recognize the intentions of such VRUs. In the case of cyclists, we assume that they follow the established traffic codes to indicate future left/right turns and stop maneuvers with arm signals. In the case of pedestrians, no indications can be assumed a priori. Instead, we hypothesize that the walking pattern of a pedestrian can allow us to determine if he/she has the intention of crossing the road in the path of the egovehicle, so that the ego-vehicle must maneuver accordingly (e.g. slowing down or stopping). In this PhD work, we show how the same methodology can be used for recognizing pedestrians and cyclists’ intentions. For pedestrians, we perform experiments on the publicly available Daimler and JAAD datasets. For cyclists, we did not found an analogous dataset, therefore, we created our own one by acquiring
and annotating corresponding video-sequences which we aim to share with the
research community. Overall, the proposed pipeline provides new state-of-the-art results on the intention recognition of VRUs.

Abstract: Humansmove their eyes in order to learn visual representations of the world. These eye movements depend on distinct factors, either by the scene that we perceive or by our own decisions. To select what is relevant to attend is part of our survival mechanisms and the way we build reality, as we constantly react both consciously and unconsciously to all the stimuli that is projected into our eyes. In this thesis we try to explain (1) how we move our eyes, (2) how to build machines that understand visual information and deploy eyemovements, and (3) how to make these machines understand tasks in order to decide for eye movements.
(1) We provided the analysis of eye movement behavior elicited by low-level feature distinctiveness with a dataset of 230 synthetically-generated image patterns. A total of 15 types of stimuli has been generated (e.g. orientation, brightness, color, size, etc.), with 7 feature contrasts for each feature category. Eye-tracking data was collected from 34 participants during the viewing of the dataset, using Free-Viewing and Visual Search task instructions. Results showed that saliency is predominantly and distinctively influenced by: 1. feature type, 2. feature contrast, 3. Temporality of fixations, 4. task difficulty and 5. center bias. From such dataset (SID4VAM), we have computed a benchmark of saliency models by testing performance using psychophysical patterns. Model performance has been evaluated considering model inspiration and consistency with human psychophysics. Our study reveals that state-of-the-art Deep Learning saliency models do not performwell with synthetic pattern images, instead, modelswith Spectral/Fourier inspiration outperform others in saliency metrics and are more consistent with human psychophysical experimentation.
(2) Computations in the primary visual cortex (area V1 or striate cortex) have long been hypothesized to be responsible, among several visual processing mechanisms, of bottom-up visual attention (also named saliency). In order to validate this hypothesis, images from eye tracking datasets have been processed with a biologically plausible model of V1 (named Neurodynamic SaliencyWaveletModel or NSWAM). Following Li’s neurodynamic model, we define V1’s lateral connections with a network of firing rate neurons, sensitive to visual features such as brightness, color, orientation and scale. Early subcortical processes (i.e. retinal and thalamic) are functionally simulated. The resulting saliency maps are generated from the model output, representing the neuronal activity of V1 projections towards brain areas involved in eye movement control. We want to pinpoint that our unified computational architecture is able to reproduce several visual processes (i.e. brightness, chromatic induction and visual discomfort) without applying any type of training or optimization and keeping the same parametrization. The model has been extended (NSWAM-CM) with an implementation of the cortical magnification function to define the retinotopical projections towards V1, processing neuronal activity for each distinct view during scene observation. Novel computational definitions of top-down inhibition (in terms of inhibition of return and selection mechanisms), are also proposed to predict attention in Free-Viewing and Visual Search conditions. Results show that our model outperforms other biologically-inpired models of saliency prediction as well as to predict visual saccade sequences, specifically for nature and synthetic images. We also show how temporal and spatial characteristics of inhibition of return can improve prediction of saccades, as well as how distinct search strategies (in terms of feature-selective or category-specific inhibition) predict attention at distinct image contexts.
(3) Although previous scanpath models have been able to efficiently predict saccades during Free-Viewing, it is well known that stimulus and task instructions can strongly affect eye movement patterns. In particular, task priming has been shown to be crucial to the deployment of eye movements, involving interactions between brain areas related to goal-directed behavior, working and long-termmemory in combination with stimulus-driven eyemovement neuronal correlates. In our latest study we proposed an extension of the Selective Tuning Attentive Reference Fixation ControllerModel based on task demands (STAR-FCT), describing novel computational definitions of Long-TermMemory, Visual Task Executive and Task Working Memory. With these modules we are able to use textual instructions in order to guide the model to attend to specific categories of objects and/or places in the scene. We have designed our memorymodel by processing a visual hierarchy of low- and high-level features. The relationship between the executive task instructions and the memory representations has been specified using a tree of semantic similarities between the learned features and the object category labels. Results reveal that by using this model, the resulting object localizationmaps and predicted saccades have a higher probability to fall inside the salient regions depending on the distinct task instructions compared to saliency.