Image Retrieval: Theory and Research (review)

Image Retrieval: Theory and Research is a book that serves, as author Corinne Jörgensen emphasizes, as a foundation for individuals in research communities who need an introductory overview on the issues of image access, indexing and retrieval. It becomes clear in reading this excellent book that it is intended for experienced readers: not only

because of the quite brisk "first-aid" coverage of the exhaustive fields that relate to image retrieval and systems design, such as the domains of cognitive psychology, the psychology of art, computer science, content-based image retrieval (CBR) and library and information science (LIS), but also owing to the compactness of the information presented.

It is made clear that the cross-disciplinary, user-centered approach is a must in future research. The large body of literature concerning data models, pattern and feature recognition, database architectures and machine learning and image understanding through applications of artificial intelligence, Jörgensen notes, have concentrated on what is computationally possible, but not on the analysis of the needs of real-world users. The support outside the scope of the book could be found in Andy Clark's discussion of the inseparable reciprocal evolutionary relationship between the human mind and techno-environment, that is, "specially constructed environments replete with artifacts, external symbols, and all the variegated scaffoldings of science, art and culture" [1]. Jörgensen suggests unifying research technology, methods and goals that facilitate "a common, sensible, and easily understood framework" (p. 199) for the future interdisciplinary research community.

Jörgensen's preliminary research interest lies in identifying and categorizing image attributes in user queries and image-indexing [2]. The research draws from the human tendency for "similarity" and "critical difference" judgment, which provides plausible tools for image feature categorizing. The perceptually stimulated attributes, such as the human figure, objects, color and location, are typically recognized in images. Jörgensen's research concludes that the contextual situatedness of each individual, whether a user or an indexer, fundamentally enables or constrains the image classification and management processes. Emotional moods, personal motivations, likes and dislikes, life experience, etc. affect the descriptions and feature attributes given to the images when indexing and, in turn, to the information requested when searching images. Thus, an ecological view [3] surfaces toward the end of the book.

Jörgensen's wish list for future research includes the following: a tes-bed for comparative evaluation, which would incorporate a large number of images from diverse domains (science, arts, consumers, etc.); a visual indexing language for bridging the gap between, for example, the automated lower-level feature-based image-content analyses and the higher-level semantic content of images; an integrated indexing record accommodating multiple types of data from both human and machine process; widening communities of research and practice juxtaposing the researchers' experiences and interests from the domains of the CBR and the LIS. Final but not least in the researcher's wish list is a request for a new starting point: Understanding the needs of an end user and her desired methods of interaction should guide creation of "real-world" applications, specifically usable, flexible interfaces.

The critical notion of the book's content draws from the apparent two-faceted problem of visual and textual information. Although the book emphasizes the research orientation toward the integration of visual and textual knowledge, it deliberately ignores this in the content of the book itself. In my view, both for less-experienced readers and for researchers not familiar with the computational image-analyzing systems, access to the image indexing and retrieval topic might have become more feasible with some visualization. Use of images could have added to the discussion the actual dimension that the author's approach emphasizes, the visual knowledge and embodied understanding as an unexplored resource of image retrieval systems design.

In conclusion, I recommend the book as an excellent introductory text to the field of image processing. Jörgensen's overview on image retrieval, that...