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Symmetry
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Visual Symmetry 2018
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Visual Symmetry 2018

A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Life Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2019) | Viewed by 20342

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Yuka Sasaki

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Brown University, Department of Cognitive, Linguistic & Psychological Sciences, Box 1821, 190 Thayer Street Providence, RI 02912, USA
Interests: unconscious brain activity; visual/motor skill learning during wakefulness and sleep; non-invasive neuroimaging techniques including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Humans value visual symmetry. Why is symmetry so special to human perception? Is it because symmetry grabs people’s attention? Is it because symmetry is one of Gestalt laws? Symmetry seems to facilitate various functions ranging from visual processing to sexual selection. It is suggested that perception of symmetry develops in children and sensitivity to symmetry declines with aging. While perception and appreciation of symmetry seems to be an important visual cue to humans, neural mechanisms of perception of symmetry are not completely understood. Sasaki et al. investigated neural correlates of symmetry using functional magnetic resonance imaging and found strong involvement of higher visual areas in perception of symmetry. However, it is still not clear how perception of symmetry is associated with grouping of objects, aesthetic sensation, reward, and attention. Here we call for papers, which address why and how visual symmetry affects the human psychology.

Prof. Yuka Sasaki
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Symmetry
  • Non-invasive neuroimaging
  • Gestalt
  • Reward
  • Attention

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 16651 KiB  
Article
Blind Deblurring of Saturated Images Based on Optimization and Deep Learning for Dynamic Visual Inspection on the Assembly Line
by Bodi Wang, Guixiong Liu and Junfang Wu
Symmetry 2019, 11(5), 678; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11050678 - 16 May 2019
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3148
Abstract
Image deblurring can improve visual quality and mitigates motion blur for dynamic visual inspection. We propose a method to deblur saturated images for dynamic visual inspection by applying blur kernel estimation and deconvolution modeling. The blur kernel is estimated in a transform domain, [...] Read more.
Image deblurring can improve visual quality and mitigates motion blur for dynamic visual inspection. We propose a method to deblur saturated images for dynamic visual inspection by applying blur kernel estimation and deconvolution modeling. The blur kernel is estimated in a transform domain, whereas the deconvolution model is decoupled into deblurring and denoising stages via variable splitting. Deblurring predicts the mask specifying saturated pixels, which are then discarded, and denoising is learned via the fast and flexible denoising network (FFDNet) convolutional neural network (CNN) at a wide range of noise levels. Hence, the proposed deconvolution model provides the benefits of both model optimization and deep learning. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method suitably restores visual quality and outperforms existing approaches with good score improvements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visual Symmetry 2018)
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9 pages, 2256 KiB  
Article
Perception of Human Age from Faces: Symmetric Versus Asymmetric Movement
by Miyuki G. Kamachi, Tsukasa Chiba, Motonori Kurosumi and Koji Mizukoshi
Symmetry 2019, 11(5), 650; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11050650 - 09 May 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 6964
Abstract
Dynamic movements of a face affect human perception of a person’s identification, emotional expression, speech, and so on. Findings of studies related to age perception, however, have mainly been obtained from static features of texture such as wrinkles and spots on the skin. [...] Read more.
Dynamic movements of a face affect human perception of a person’s identification, emotional expression, speech, and so on. Findings of studies related to age perception, however, have mainly been obtained from static features of texture such as wrinkles and spots on the skin. Our goal is to investigate the perception of human age related to dynamic information. Systematically manipulated bilateral symmetric and asymmetric facial movements were utilized as stimuli in the age perception experiment. All images were low-pass filtered so that the judgment would not depend on detailed texture information. In the experiment, viewers judged the age level (the first half (indicating 20–24 and 60–64) or the latter half (indicating 25–29 and 65–69) of two age groups: 20’s and 60’s. Results revealed that faces with symmetric dynamic movements of expression (from a neutral face to one pronouncing “i”) were not only judged at the level of chance, but were also perceived to be statistically significantly younger than faces with asymmetric dynamic movements. It was also found that types of asymmetry were also effective in age perception, which might be a reflection of laterization of facial processing in a human brain. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visual Symmetry 2018)
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14 pages, 3738 KiB  
Article
Is Handedness Information Critical for Discriminating Figure Pairs?
by Fumio Kanbe
Symmetry 2019, 11(5), 624; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11050624 - 03 May 2019
Viewed by 2003
Abstract
Mirror-reflected or axisymmetric (Ax) pairs of figures are known to be difficult to discriminate. If non-identical pairs of figures with specific feature values impede discrimination to the same extent as the discrimination of Ax pairs, the feature values concerned would be expected to [...] Read more.
Mirror-reflected or axisymmetric (Ax) pairs of figures are known to be difficult to discriminate. If non-identical pairs of figures with specific feature values impede discrimination to the same extent as the discrimination of Ax pairs, the feature values concerned would be expected to cause discrimination difficulty and may be critical for figure recognition in general. In the present study, we examined whether handedness information (i.e., the left or right side of a disoriented figure) is critical for the discrimination of figure pairs with pairs of complex figures (Experiment 1) and simpler figures (Experiment 2). Participants performed a task requiring discrimination of whether the figures in a pair had the same shape regardless of orientation. Three basic pair types were prepared: identically shaped pairs, Ax pairs, and non-identical, non-axisymmetric (Nd) pairs. Non-axisymmetric pairs were further classified into same-handedness pairs and opposite-handedness pairs. The results revealed that discrimination latencies were longer for Ax pairs than for both same-handedness pairs and opposite-handedness pairs. These findings suggest that handedness information is not a critical feature in figure recognition. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visual Symmetry 2018)
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12 pages, 3367 KiB  
Article
GPU-based Fast Motion Synthesis of Large Crowds Using Adaptive Multi-Joint Models
by Mankyu Sung and Yejin Kim
Symmetry 2019, 11(3), 422; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11030422 - 22 Mar 2019
Viewed by 2456
Abstract
This paper introduces a GPU (graphics processing unit)-based fast motion synthesis algorithm for a large crowd. The main parts of the algorithms were selecting the most appropriate joint model given adaptive screen-space occupancy of each character and synthesizing motions for the joint model [...] Read more.
This paper introduces a GPU (graphics processing unit)-based fast motion synthesis algorithm for a large crowd. The main parts of the algorithms were selecting the most appropriate joint model given adaptive screen-space occupancy of each character and synthesizing motions for the joint model with one or two input motion capture data. The different joint models had a character range from fine-detailed and fully-articulated ones to the most simplified ones. The motion synthesizer, running on a GPU, performed a series of motion blending for each joint of the characters in parallel. For better performance of the motion synthesizer, the GPU maintained a novel cache structure for given speed parameters. Using the high computation power of GPUs, the motion synthesizer could generate arbitrary speeds and orientations for the motions of a vast number of characters. Experiments showed that the proposed algorithm could animate more than 5000 characters in real-time on modest graphics acceleration cards. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visual Symmetry 2018)
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16 pages, 1539 KiB  
Article
Estimating Efforts and Success of Symmetry-Seeing Machines by Use of Synthetic Data
by Eckart Michaelsen and Stéphane Vujasinovic
Symmetry 2019, 11(2), 227; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11020227 - 14 Feb 2019
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1950
Abstract
Representative input data are a necessary requirement for the assessment of machine-vision systems. For symmetry-seeing machines in particular, such imagery should provide symmetries as well as asymmetric clutter. Moreover, there must be reliable ground truth with the data. It should be possible to [...] Read more.
Representative input data are a necessary requirement for the assessment of machine-vision systems. For symmetry-seeing machines in particular, such imagery should provide symmetries as well as asymmetric clutter. Moreover, there must be reliable ground truth with the data. It should be possible to estimate the recognition performance and the computational efforts by providing different grades of difficulty and complexity. Recent competitions used real imagery labeled by human subjects with appropriate ground truth. The paper at hand proposes to use synthetic data instead. Such data contain symmetry, clutter, and nothing else. This is preferable because interference with other perceptive capabilities, such as object recognition, or prior knowledge, can be avoided. The data are given sparsely, i.e., as sets of primitive objects. However, images can be generated from them, so that the same data can also be fed into machines requiring dense input, such as multilayered perceptrons. Sparse representations are preferred, because the author’s own system requires such data, and in this way, any influence of the primitive extraction method is excluded. The presented format allows hierarchies of symmetries. This is important because hierarchy constitutes a natural and dominant part in symmetry-seeing. The paper reports some experiments using the author’s Gestalt algebra system as symmetry-seeing machine. Additionally included is a comparative test run with the state-of-the-art symmetry-seeing deep learning convolutional perceptron of the PSU. The computational efforts and recognition performance are assessed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visual Symmetry 2018)
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Graphical abstract

16 pages, 1995 KiB  
Article
Bilateral Symmetry Strengthens the Perceptual Salience of Figure against Ground
by Birgitta Dresp-Langley
Symmetry 2019, 11(2), 225; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11020225 - 14 Feb 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3375
Abstract
Although symmetry has been discussed in terms of a major law of perceptual organization since the early conceptual efforts of the Gestalt school (Wertheimer, Metzger, Koffka and others), the first quantitative measurements testing for effects of symmetry on processes of Gestalt formation have [...] Read more.
Although symmetry has been discussed in terms of a major law of perceptual organization since the early conceptual efforts of the Gestalt school (Wertheimer, Metzger, Koffka and others), the first quantitative measurements testing for effects of symmetry on processes of Gestalt formation have seen the day only recently. In this study, a psychophysical rating study and a “foreground”-“background” choice response time experiment were run with human observers to test for effects of bilateral symmetry on the perceived strength of figure-ground in triangular Kanizsa configurations. Displays with and without bilateral symmetry, identical physically-specified-to-total contour ratio, and constant local contrast intensity within and across conditions, but variable local contrast polarity and variable orientation in the plane, were presented in a random order to human observers. Configurations with bilateral symmetry produced significantly stronger figure-ground percepts reflected by greater subjective magnitudes and consistently higher percentages of “foreground” judgments accompanied by significantly shorter response times. These effects of symmetry depend neither on the orientation of the axis of symmetry, nor on the contrast polarity of the physical inducers. It is concluded that bilateral symmetry, irrespective of orientation, significantly contributes to the, largely sign-invariant, visual mechanisms of figure-ground segregation that determine the salience of figure-ground in perceptually ambiguous configurations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visual Symmetry 2018)
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