ShapeY: Measuring Shape Recognition Capacity Using Nearest Neighbor Matching
Object recognition in humans depends primarily on shape cues. We have developed a new approach to measuring the shape recognition performance of a vision system based on nearest neighbor view matching within the system's embedding space. Our performance benchmark, ShapeY, allows for precise control of task difficulty, by enforcing that view matching span a specified degree of 3D viewpoint change and/or appearance change. As a first test case we measured the performance of ResNet50 pre-trained on ImageNet. Matching error rates were high. For example, a 27 degree change in object pitch led ResNet50 to match the incorrect object 45 disruptive. Examination of false matches indicates that ResNet50's embedding space is severely "tangled". These findings suggest ShapeY can be a useful tool for charting the progress of artificial vision systems towards human-level shape recognition capabilities.
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