Visual Perception of the Physical Properties of Objects
Research in my lab focusses on how the brain visually estimates the physical and functional properties of objects in our surroundings.
When we look at things, we don't experience the world as a meaningless jumble of lines, colours or motions. Instead, whenever we open our eyes, we immediately gain access to a richly detailed world of meaningful visual sensations. We recognise objects; perceive what things are made of; identify risk and pleasures and can even work out how objects might respond to forces or actions. Based on how things look, we are able to make a remarkable range of subtle judgements about the physical properties of objects, such as whether food is fresh or stale or whether an object is stable or likely to topple over. Without touching an object, we can usually work out what it would feel like were we to reach out and touch it, based on the curves and contours of its shape and the way light plays across its surface. My research program aims to understand how the brain estimates the 3D shape of surfaces, and the material properties of objects such as elasticity, translucency or viscosity. In order to do this, we use a combination of computer graphics, image analysis techniques, neural modelling and psychophysical experiments.
Keywords: 3D Shape | Material Perception | Perceptual Organization | Object Categorization | Naive Physics | Computer Graphics
Journal Publications
Fleming, R. W., Holtmann-Rice, D. and H. H. Bülthoff (2011). Estimation of 3D shape from image orientations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(51) 20438-20443.
Doerschner, K. Fleming, R.W., Yilmaz, O., Schrater, P.R., Hartung, B. and Kersten, D. (2011). Visual Motion and the Perception of Surface Material. Current Biology, 21(23): 1-7.
Barnett-Cowan M., Fleming R.W., Singh M. and HH. Bülthoff (2011). Perceived Object Stability Depends on Multisensory Estimates of Gravity. PLoS ONE 6(4): 1-5.
Fleming, R.W. (2011). Visual Perception: Bizarre Contours Go Against the Odds. Current Biology, 21(7): R259-R261.
Fleming, R.W., Jäkel, F. and L. T. Maloney (2011). Visual Perception of Thick Transparent Materials. Psychological Science, 22(6): 812-820.
Wallraven, C., Fleming, R. W., Cunningham, D. W., Rigau, J., Feixas, M. and M. Sbert (2009). Categorizing art: Comparing humans and computers. Computers and Graphics, 33(4), 484-495.
Masia, B., Agustin, S., Fleming, R. W., Sorkine, O. and D. Gutierrez (2009). Evaluation of reverse tone mapping through varying exposure conditions. ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia) 28(5:160), 1-8.
Akyüz, A. O., Fleming, R. W., Riecke, B. E., Reinhard, E. and H. H. Bülthoff (2007). Do HDR displays support LDR content?: a psychophysical evaluation. ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 07) 26(3:38), 1-7.
Weidenbacher, U., Bayerl, P., Neumann, H. and R. W. Fleming (2006). Sketching Shiny Surfaces: 3D Shape Extraction and Depiction of Specular Surfaces. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, 3(3), 262-285.
Kahn, E. A., Reinhard, E., Fleming, R. W. and Bülthoff, H. H. (2006). Image-Based Material Editing. ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 06), 25(3), 654-663.
Fleming, R. W. and Bülthoff, H. H. (2005). Low-level image cues in the perception of translucent materials. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, 2(3), 346-382.
Fleming, R. W., Torralba, A. and Adelson, E. H. (2004). Specular reflections and the perception of shape. Journal of Vision, 4(9), 798-820.
Fleming, R. W., Dror, R. O. and E. H. Adelson (2003). Real world illumination and the perception of surface reflectance properties. Journal of Vision, 3(5), 347-368.
Anderson, B. L., Singh, M and R. W. Fleming (2002). The Interpolation of Object and Surface Structure. Cognitive Psychology, 44, 148-190.
Current Funding
Under Review: EU Marie Curie Initial Training Network (FP7-PEOPLE-ITN-2012)
Role: Coordinator Consortium Title: "PRISM: Perceptual Representations of Illumination, Shape and Materials" Partners: Giessen, TU Delft, Birmingham, Leuven, Paris Descartes, INRIA, Bilkent, Philips, NextLimit
NSF-BMBF Joint Program in Computational Neuroscience (FKZ: 01GQ1111)
Role: PI Project Title: "Towards a Neural Theory of 3D Shape Perception" Co-PI: Prof. Steven Zucker, Dept. Computer Science, Yale University
Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, Tübingen (FKZ: 01GQ1002)
Role: PI Project title: "Population Codes for 3D Shape Perception". Project Collaborator: Dr. Georgios Keleris.
Australian Research Council.
Role: PI Project title: "The perception of surfaces and materials." CI: Prof. Bart Anderson; co-PI: Dr. Juno Kim. School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Australia.
Wellcome Trust (UK).
Role: Co-PI. Project title: "On reflection: the role of disparities in the estimation of shape from specular surfaces" Co-PI: Dr. Andrew Welchman Collaborator: Prof. Andrew Blake, FRS, FREng.
Previous Funding
2006 - 2009: BW-FIT (State of Baden-Württemberg).
Role: PI. Consortium title: "Information at your fingertips" Project title: "Tracking and predicting gaze direction of a freely moving observer interacting with a large high resolution display" Collaborator: Prof. Oliver Deussen, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Konstanz.
2006 - 2009: DFG (German Research Foundation): FL 624/1-1
Role: PI. Consortium title: "Perceptual Graphics" Project title: "Human visual perception and classification of materials". Collaborator: Prof. Reinhard Klein, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Bonn.
