BMVA
British Machine Vision Association and Society for Pattern Recognition

Call for Participation
Vision Systems for Perception and Action
One Day BMVA technical meeting in London, UK, on 6th March, 2009
Chairs: Dr Neil Thacker, University of Manchester, 
                    Dr E. Charles Leek, Bangor University

The task of constructing artificial vision systems still holds many 
challenges, many of which are shown into sharp relief by the apparent 
ease with which humans solve visual processing tasks. By comparison, 
many computer vision algorithms have very restricted applicability, 
particularly with respect to natural scenes. There appears to be more to 
be learned regarding which information is used and at what point during 
human visual processing it is obtained. What should be regarded as a 
semantically useful description of the world? Which tasks are inevitably 
`top down', and which should be achievable `bottom up'?

Great strides have been made within the last twenty years in our 
understanding of the cognitive and neurobiological substrates of visual 
perception and motor control. These advances have begun to unravel the 
complex inner workings of the human brain providing us with unique 
insights into the powerful computational systems that have evolved to 
support seemingly effortless activities like perceiving shape, reaching 
and grasping.

The purpose of this one day BMVA meeting is to bring together 
researchers from areas of biological modelling, psychophysics and 
computer vision, to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the 
computational models used when attempting tasks equivalent to human 
visual perception. It is intended that as well as covering material 
describing latest results in understanding human vision there will be 
more general talks which summarise the experiences and opinions of 
representatives from these disciplines, including challenges to current 
approaches.  We will investigate how our understanding of human vision 
and motor control may be exploited by computer vision researchers, and 
provide constraints on the development of more efficient artificial 
vision and robotics systems. In turn, it is also recognised that 
advances in computer vision themselves provide further insights into 
human cognitive processing.

Time will be allocated for discussion of the issues raised so that the 
possibilities for consensus and future synergies between these fields 
can be explored. If you have views on this subject please attend and 
join in with the discussions.

Although the agenda has been organised by invitation some space is still 
available for additional speakers which fit in with the objectives of 
the meeting. If you wish to discuss the possibility of making a 
presentation please send an email to [log in to unmask] by 
6th February 2009.