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Cited by 537

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 32 of the 32 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Why is Real-World Visual Object Recognition Hard?

Open access
Pinto, Nicolas, Cox, David D, DiCarlo, James J·2008·PLoS Computational Biology

Abstract

Progress in understanding the brain mechanisms underlying vision requires the construction of computational models that not only emulate the brain's anatomy and physiology, but ultimately match its performance on visual tasks. In recent years, "natural" images have become popular in the study of vision and have been used to show apparently impressive progress in building such models. Here, we challenge the use of uncontrolled "natural" images in guiding that progress. In particular, we show that a simple V1-like model--a neuroscientist's "null" model, which should perform poorly at real-world visual object recognition tasks--outperforms state-of-the-art object recognition systems (biologically inspired and otherwise) on a standard, ostensibly natural image recognition test. As a counterpoint, we designed a "simpler" recognition test to better span the real-world variation in object pose, position, and scale, and we show that this test correctly exposes the inadequacy of the V1-like model. Taken together, these results demonstrate that tests based on uncontrolled natural images can be seriously misleading, potentially guiding progress in the wrong direction. Instead, we reexamine what it means for images to be natural and argue for a renewed focus on the core problem of object recognition--real-world image variation.

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Metadata

Authors
Pinto, N., Cox, D. D., & DiCarlo, J. J.
Venue
PLoS Computational Biology
Published
2008-01-25
Volume
4
Issue
1
Pages
e27
ISSN
  • 1553-734X (ISSN-L)
  • 1553-7358
OpenAlex
W2026942141
Cited by
537
References
32
FWCI
17.69
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
gold

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Why is Real-World Visual Object Recognition Hard? https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1371/journal.pcbi.0040027
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Pinto, N., Cox, D. D., & DiCarlo, J. J. (2008). Why is Real-World Visual Object Recognition Hard? PLoS Computational Biology. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.0040027

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