Human Visual System

Neural Network
Stanley Alphonso, Imran Afzal,
Anand Phadake, Putta Reddy
Shankar, and Charles Tappert
 Agenda
• Introduction – make a case for the study
– The Visual System
– Biological Simulations of the Visual System
– Machine Learning and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs)
– ANNs Using Line and/or Edge Detectors
– Current Study
• Methodology
• Experimental Results
• Conclusions
• Future Work
Introduction - The Visual System
• The Visual System Pathway
– Eye, optic nerve, lateral geniculate nucleus, visual cortex
• Hubel and Wiesel
– 1981 Nobel Prize for work in early 1960s
– Cat’s visual cortex
• cats anesthetized, eyes open with controlling muscles paralyzed
to fix the stare in a specific direction
• thin microelectrodes measure activity in individual cells
• cells specifically sensitive to line of light at specific orientation
– Key discovery – line and edge detectors
Introduction - Computational Neuroscience
Biological Simulations of the Visual System
• Hubel-Wiesel discoveries instrumental in the creation
of what is now called computational neuroscience
• Which studies brain function in terms of information
processing properties of structures that make up the
nervous system
• Creates biologically detailed models of the brain
• 18 November 2009 – IBM announced they created
the largest brain simulation to date on the Blue Gene
supercomputer – millions of neurons and billions of
synapses exceeding those in the cat’s brain
 Introduction –
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs)
• Machine learning scientists have taken a
different approach using simpler neural
network models called ANNs
• Commonest type used in pattern recognition is
a feedforward ANN
• Typically consists of 3 layers of neurons
– Input layer
– Hidden layer
– Output layer
Introduction – Simple Feedforward
Artificial Neural Network (ANN)
 Introduction - Literature review of
ANNs using line/edge detectors

• GIS images/maps – line and edge detectors in

four orientations – 0°, 45°, 90°, and 135°
• Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images – line
detectors constructed from edge detectors
• Line detection can be done using edge
techniques such as Sobel, Prewitt, Laplacian
Gaussian, Zero Crossing and Canny edge
detector
 Introduction - Current Study
• Use ANNs to simulate line and edge detectors
known to exist in the human visual cortex
• Construct two feedforward ANNs – one with
line detectors and one without – and compare
their accuracy and efficiency on a character
recognition task
• Demonstrate superior performance using pre-
wired line and edge detectors
 Methodology
• Character recognition task - classify straight
line uppercase alphabetic characters
• Experiment 1 – ANN without line detectors
• Experiment 2 – ANN with line detectors
• Compare
– Recognition accuracy
– Efficiency – training time
 Alphabetic Input Patterns
Six Straight Line Characters
(5 x 7 bit patterns)

***** ***** * * * * *****

* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
**** **** ***** * * *
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
***** * * * * ***** *
Experiment 1 - ANN
without line detectors
 Experiment 1 - ANN
without line detectors
• Alphabet character can be placed in any position
inside the 20x20 retina not adjacent to an edge –
168 (12*14) possible positions
• Training – choose 40 random non-identical positions
for each of the 6 characters (~25% of patterns)
– Total of 240 (40 x 6) input patterns
– Cycle through the sequence E, F, H, I, L, T forty times for
one pass (epoch) of the 240 patterns
• Testing – choose another 40 random non-identical
positions for each character for total 240
Input patterns on the retina
E(2,2) and E(12,5)
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Experiment 2 - ANN
with line detectors
 Simple horizontal and vertical
line detectors
Horizontal Vertical
+
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+++++ -+-
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+

288 horizontal and 288 vertical line detectors for

a total of 576 simple line detectors
24 complex vertical line detectors and
their feeding 12 simple line detectors
 Results – No Line Detectors
10 hidden-layer units
Epochs Training Training Testing
Time Accuracy Accuracy

50 ~2.5 hr 100% 26.7%

100 ~4 hr 100% 28.3%

200 ~8 hr 100% 28.8%

400 ~16 hr 100% 30.4%

800 ~30 hr 100% 28.3%

1600 ~2 days 100% 23.8%

Average 100% 27.7%

 Results – Line Detectors
10 hidden-layer units
Epochs Training Training Testing
Time Accuracy Accuracy
50 0:37 min 47.5% 37.5%

100 0:26 min 100.0% 63.3%

200 0:51 min 100.0% 68.8%

400 2:28 min 71.3% 50.8%

800 3:37 min 100.0% 67.9%

1600 8:42 min 95.8% 56.7%

Average 85.8% 57.5%

 Line Detector Results
50 hidden-layer units
Epochs Set/ Training Training Testing
Attained Time Accuracy Accuracy

50/8 41 sec 100% 70.0%

100/9 45 sec 100% 69.8%
200/10 48 sec 100% 71.9%
400/10 49 sec 100% 77.1%
800/8 41 sec 100% 72.5%
1600/9 45 sec 100% 71.3%
Average 100% 72.1%
 Confusion Matrix
Overall Accuracy of 77.1%
Out E F H I L T
In

E 62.5 20 0 0 5 12.5

F 12.5 80 0 0 2.5 5
H 0 7.5 85 0 7.5 0
I 0 5 0 95 0 0

L 0 15 2.5 5 72.5 5

T 2.5 20 0 10 0 67.5
 Conclusion - Efficiency

• ANN with line detectors resulted in a

significantly more efficient network
– training time decreased by several orders
of magnitude
Conclusion - Recognition Accuracy

100

90
Line detectors
80 50 hidden units
Line detectors
70 10 hidden units
60

50
No line detectors
40 10 hidden units
30

20

10

0
 Conclusion – Efficiency
Compare Fixed/Variable Weights

Experiment Fixed Variable Total

Weights Weights Weights

1 No Line
Detectors 0 20,300 20,300

2 Line
Detectors 6,912 2,700 9,612
 Conclusion

• The strength of the study was its simplicity

• The weakness was also it simplicity and that
the line detectors appear to be designed
specifically for the patterns to be classified
• Weakness can be corrected in future work
 Future Work
Other alphabetic input patterns

* **** ***

* * * * * *

* * * * *
* * **** *
***** * * *
* * * * * *
* * **** ***
Simple horizontal and vertical
edge detectors

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-+ +-
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Questions