Béla Julesz
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Béla Julesz (also Bela Julesz in English; February 19, 1928 – December 31, 2003) was a Hungarian-born American visual neuroscientist and experimental psychologist in the fields of
visual The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (the ...
and auditory
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
. Julesz was the originator of random dot stereograms which led to the creation of autostereograms. He also was the first to study texture discrimination by constraining second-order statistics.


Biography

Béla Julesz was born in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
,
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
, on February 19, 1928. He immigrated to the United States with his wife Margit after receiving his Ph.D. from the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( hu, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, MTA) is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. Its ma ...
in 1956. Although Béla is the Hungarian name with the accent, Julesz always used the non-accented version. In 1956, Julesz joined the renowned
Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
, where he headed the Sensory and Perceptual Processes Department (1964–1982), then the Visual Perception Research Department (1983–1989). Much of his research focused on
physiological psychology Physiological psychology is a subdivision of behavioral neuroscience (biological psychology) that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experimen ...
topics including
depth perception Depth perception is the ability to perceive distance to objects in the world using the visual system and visual perception. It is a major factor in perceiving the world in three dimensions. Depth perception happens primarily due to stereopsis an ...
and
pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data. It has applications in statistical data analysis, signal processing, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphi ...
within the
visual system The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (the a ...
. In 1959, Julesz created the
random-dot stereogram Random-dot stereogram (RDS) is stereo pair of images of random dots which, when viewed with the aid of a stereoscope, or with the eyes focused on a point in front of or behind the images, produces a sensation of depth, with objects appearing to be i ...
using pairs of random dot patterns that were identical except for slight differences in the horizontal position of a subset of dots. When these patterns were viewed one to each eye via a
stereoscope A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image. A typical stereoscope provides each eye with a lens that makes the ima ...
, the subset of dots appeared to be at a different depth from the remainder. Julesz referred to this, whimsically, as '' cyclopean vision'', after the mythical
Cyclopes In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; el, Κύκλωπες, ''Kýklōpes'', "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , ''Kýklōps'') are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguish ...
, creatures with a single eye in their forehead instead of the usual two. This was because the shape of the depth area was invisible to either eye separately; it is visible only to the ''cyclopean eye'' of stereoscopic perception that combines the information from the two eyes. Later,
Christopher Tyler Christopher William Tyler is a neuroscientist, creator of the autostereogram ("Magic Eye" pictures), and is the Head of the Brain Imaging Center at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute He also holds a professorship at City University of L ...
, a former student of Julesz, used the principles of random-dot stereograms to invent
autostereogram An autostereogram is a two-dimensional (2D) image that can create the optical illusion of a three-dimensional (3D) scene. Autostereograms use only one image to accomplish the effect while normal stereograms require two. The 3D scene in an a ...
s, which create the same effect using a single image instead of two. Julesz made important contributions to the theory of human visual perception of texture. In 1962 he originated the Julesz Conjecture, which states that humans cannot distinguish between textures with identical
second-order Second-order may refer to: Mathematics * Second order approximation, an approximation that includes quadratic terms * Second-order arithmetic, an axiomatization allowing quantification of sets of numbers * Second-order differential equation, a di ...
statistics. In 1973, he proved this conjecture false, though the concept that image textures could be modeled based on low-order statistics remained. In 1981, he originated the Texton Theory, which states that textons, composed of local image features, are "the putative units of pre-attentive human texture perception". In 1989, he retired from Bell Labs and began teaching in the
Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
department at
Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
in
Piscataway, New Jersey Piscataway () is a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. It is a suburb of the New York metropolitan area, in the Raritan Valley. At the 2010 United States Census, the population was 56,044, an increase of 5,562 (+11.0%) fr ...
. It was there that he established and directed the Laboratory of Vision Research, which was dedicated to investigating mechanisms of
stereopsis Stereopsis () is the component of depth perception retrieved through binocular vision. Stereopsis is not the only contributor to depth perception, but it is a major one. Binocular vision happens because each eye receives a different image becaus ...
,
motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and mea ...
,
binocular vision In biology, binocular vision is a type of vision in which an animal has two eyes capable of facing the same direction to perceive a single three-dimensional image of its surroundings. Binocular vision does not typically refer to vision where an ...
, texture perception and
attention Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Atte ...
. The lab helped establish cognitive science, neuroscience, and vision science as important fields of study at Rutgers. Julesz became
professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
in 1999, and remained the director of the lab until his death on December 31, 2003.


Education

* 1956 - Ph.D.,
Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( hu, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, MTA) is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. Its ma ...
* 1950 -
Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
,
Technical University An institute of technology (also referred to as: technological university, technical university, university of technology, technological educational institute, technical college, polytechnic university or just polytechnic) is an institution of te ...
,
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...


Publications

Béla Julesz authored or collaborated on more than 200 publications, including '' Foundations of Cyclopean Perception'' (1971). This book is often considered a classic of
psychophysics Psychophysics quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce. Psychophysics has been described as "the scientific study of the relation between stimulus and sensation" or, m ...
and cognitive science, and has recently been added to the Millennium Project list of the 100 most-influential cognitive science books in the 20th century. This book has been republished in 2006 at MIT press.


Awards

Julesz was a State of New Jersey Professor who received a variety of awards throughout his illustrious career, including a 1983
MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...
("genius award") for his work in
Experimental Psychology Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...
and
Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
. He was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1980, the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in 1987, and the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1995.


References


Further reading

* *


External links


Flip Phillips's website
This site contains sample stereograms and supplemental images from Julesz's book, Foundations of Cylcopean Vision * https://web.archive.org/web/20041115205634/http://ur.rutgers.edu/medrel/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=3697 *
Christopher Tyler, "Bela Julesz", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2014)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Julesz, Bela 1928 births 2003 deaths Hungarian neuroscientists MacArthur Fellows Scientists at Bell Labs Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Winners of the Heineken Prize Members of the American Philosophical Society