Are Edges Sufficient for Object Recognition?

The authors argue that the concept of edges as used in current research on object recognition obscures the significant difficulties involved in interpreting stimulus information. Edges have sometimes been operationalized as line drawings, which can be an invalid and misleading practice. A new method for evaluating the utility of edge information, operationalized as the outputs of a local, signal-based edge extractor, is introduced. With 1-s exposures, the accuracy of identifying objects in the edge images was found to be less than half that with color photographs. Therefore, edges are far from being sufficient for object recognition. Alternative approaches to the problem of interpreting stimulus information are discussed