Abstract
Visual estimation of material properties of everyday objects plays a key role in our ability to interact with the environment. This seemingly effortless task poses tremendous computational challenges to the visual system, as object appearance is determined by both external factors (lighting, applied forces) and intrinsic properties (reflectance, scattering and mechanical properties). Hence, material perception provides excellent opportunities to study mechanisms of mid-level vision—the interaction between low-level visual cues and high-level knowledge of objects and physics. This session will highlight multidisciplinary advances in our understanding of material perception, including new findings from psychophysics, image analysis, computational modeling and neurophysiology.