%0 Conference Paper %B 15th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, 2000. Proceedings %D 2000 %T The statistics of optical flow: implications for the process of correspondence in vision %A Fermüller, Cornelia %A Aloimonos, J. %K Bias %K Computer vision %K correlation %K correlation methods %K energy-based method %K flow estimation %K Frequency estimation %K gradient method %K gradient methods %K Image analysis %K Image motion analysis %K Image sequences %K least squares %K least squares approximations %K Motion estimation %K Nonlinear optics %K Optical feedback %K optical flow %K Optical harmonic generation %K Optical noise %K Statistics %K Visual perception %X This paper studies the three major categories of flow estimation methods: gradient-based, energy-based, and correlation methods; it analyzes different ways of compounding 1D motion estimates (image gradients, spatio-temporal frequency triplets, local correlation estimates) into 2D velocity estimates, including linear and nonlinear methods. Correcting for the bias would require knowledge of the noise parameters. In many situations, however, these are difficult to estimate accurately, as they change with the dynamic imagery in unpredictable and complex ways. Thus, the bias really is a problem inherent to optical flow estimation. We argue that the bias is also integral to the human visual system. It is the cause of the illusory perception of motion in the Ouchi pattern and also explains various psychophysical studies of the perception of moving plaids. Finally, the implication of the analysis is that flow or correspondence can be estimated very accurately only when feedback is utilized %B 15th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, 2000. Proceedings %I IEEE %V 1 %P 119-126 vol.1 - 119-126 vol.1 %8 2000/// %@ 0-7695-0750-6 %G eng %R 10.1109/ICPR.2000.905288