CVPR Daily - Tuesday

20 / 30

example if I describe a giraffe to you in
words, you would know how a giraffe
looks without ever seeing one before,
just by me telling you that it has a long
neck and brown/yellow color. And then
when you see it you are able to
recognize it. But this is not the case
with computers, and it's very
interesting to be able to somehow
transfer this knowledge to computers.
Does the fact that you are working
with this subject change the way you
look at the eyes of people?
It kind of affected my way of looking at
people, because I was always
wondering what the trigger is that we
use when gazing at objects, and what
makes us recognize them fast - the
visual system is very fast. So this work
changed my view on humans and how
they focus on different regions. When I
had to go through the data which we
collected from 5 participants, I saw that
they have different focus regions. For
example one would only focus on the
head always, or the body, and so you
see that there is bias of the participant
data.
Did you also try it yourself?
Yes, I did it myself - it took a long time,
because I had to do all of them. I
learned a lot about different birds
species and dogs and cats, it was
interesting. I tried it myself to make
sure it's comfortable for others to do
the experiment.
Is this something that interests you
also before you started you scientific
studies, the way that people watch?
Actually for me personally I always
found that the eyes are the most
important feature in the human face.
The way that you look at people is a
very strong way of communication.
How do I look?
You look perfectly! [We both laugh]
But you know what the person is
thinking of you, or if they like you, by
the way they look at you, right?
You can obtain a lot of information by
looking at the way they look at you.
How come that babies naturally look
into your eyes - and not into your ears,
for example?
It could be because they are always
moving and thus attracting the
attention. And they are also just nice to
look at and sparkling [ she laughs].
You have a special story: of the 5,000
CVPR participants, you are maybe the
only one who lived in a war zone only
three years ago. Can we tell our readers
where you come from?
20 Nour Karessli
“ Eyes are the most important
feature in the human face. The way
that you look at people is a very
strong way of communication”