Computational model for face location based on cognitive principles

The human face is an object that is easily located in complex scenes by infants and adults alike. Yet the development of an automated system to perform this task is extremely challenging. This paper is concerned with the development of a computational model for locating human faces in newspaper photographs based on cognitive research in human perceptual development. In the process of learning to recognize objects in the visual world, one could assume that natural growth favors the development of the abilities to detect the more essential features first. Hence, a study of the progress of an infant's visual abilities can be used to categorize the potential features in terms of their importance. The face locator developed by the authors takes a hypothesis generate and test approach to the task of finding the locations of people's faces in digitized pictures. Information from the accompanying caption is used in the verification phase. The system successfully located all faces in 44 of the 60 (73%) test newspaper photographs.