Yaqing Niu (Andrea)

Computational Visual Cognition

I received my doctoral training in Electrical Engineering. The bulk of my research to date has addressed visual perceptual models and their application to image processing and video processing problems in order to optimize many visual signal processing algorithms/systems. With greater knowledge of other cognitive factors I will be able to leverage my existing skills to develop models that will suggest how scarce system resources (computing power, bandwidth, memory space, display/printing resolution, and so on) can be allocated to achieve the maximum perceptual significance, accessory information (e.g., for image/video watermarking, authentication, and error protection) can be concealed in the regions that will attract the least attention and thus are subject to low perceptual sensitivity. This will allow the visual quality of processed images to be evaluated for better alignment with human perception.

Within electrical engineering I have attempted to generate a perceptual model based watermarking approach. The techniques I have been developing are essentially generic and can be adapted to a wide array of visual signal processing problems. However, there are limitations to my present engineering approach to these problems. Thus I have taken the somewhat risky step to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship in a psychology program to diversify my approach and to attempt synthesis of psychological, neuroscientific and electrical engineering approaches to complex human behaviors. Along with this risk, I am confident there are significant potential gains to combining these distinct approaches to how humans process images.

• Yaqing Niu, Rebecca M. Todd and Adam K. Anderson (2012), “Effects of emotional salience can reverse the effects of stimulus-driven salience on eye movements in complex scenes,” Special Issue on The Impact of Emotion on Cognition — Dissociating between Enhancing and Impairing Effects, Frontiers in Psychology, (in preparation)
• Yaqing Niu, Matthew Kyan, Lin Ma, Azeddine Beghdadi and Sridhar Krishnan (2011), “Visual Saliency's Modulatory Effect on Just Noticeable Distortion Profile and Its Application in Image Watermarking,” Special Issue on Biologically Inspired approaches for visual information processing and analysis, Elsevier Journal Signal Processing: Image Communication, (under revision)
• Yaqing Niu, Sridhar Krishnan and Qin Zhang (2010), "Spatio-Temporal Just Noticeable Distortion Model Guided Video Watermarking, " Special Issue on Intelligent Multimedia Security and Forensics, International Journal of Digital Crime and Forensics (IJDCF), ISSN: 1941-6210 1703, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 16- 36
• Yaqing Niu, Matthew Kyan, Sridhar Krishnan and Qin Zhang (2010), "A Combined Just Noticeable Distortion Model Guided Image Watermarking," Signal Image and Video Processing, No. 11760, ISSN: 1863-1703, vol. 4, no. 2, 2010.
• S. Krishnan, X. Li, Y. Niu, N.-W. Ma, Q. Zhang, "Multimedia Image and Video Processing (2nd edition) -- Chapter 17: Watermarking Technique for Multimedia Protection ," CRC PRESS
• Yaqing Niu, Wided Souidène and Azeddine Beghdadi (2011), "A Visual Sensitivity Model Based Stereo Image Watermarking Scheme, " 3rd European Workshop on Visual Information Processing, Paris, July 2011
• Yaqing Niu, Matthew Kyan, Lin Ma, Azeddine Beghdadi and Sridhar Krishnan (2011), "A Visual Saliency Modulated Just Noticeable Distortion Profile for Image Watermarking," The 2011 European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO‐2011), Barcelona, August 2011
• Yaqing Niu, Matthew Kyan, Sridhar Krishnan and Qin Zhang (2010), "A Combined Just Noticeable Distortion Model Guided Image Watermarking," International Conference on Digital Content, Multimedia Technology and its Applications (IDC 2010), Seoul, Korea, August 2010
• Yaqing Niu, Jianbo Liu, Sridhar Krishnan and Qin Zhang (2010), " Combined Just Noticeable Difference Model Guided Image Watermarking," IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME 2010), Singapore, July 2010
• Yaqing Niu, Jianbo Liu, Sridhar Krishnan and Qin Zhang (2009), "Spatio-Temporal Just Noticeable Distortion Model Guided Video Watermarking," The 2009 IEEE Pacific-Rim Conference on Multimedia (PCM 2009), Bangkok, Thailand, December 2009
• Yaqing Niu, Yi Zhang, Cheng Yang, Qin Zhang, Sridhar Krishnan (2009), "A Video-Driven Just Noticeable Distortion Profile for Watermarking," The 2009 International Conference on Engineering Management and Service Sciences (EMS 2009), Beijing, China, June 2009
• Yaqing Niu and Yi Zhang (2009), "A Perceptual Distortion Control Model for Adaptive Video Watermarking," The Fourth session of image and graphics technology and application academic conference, Beijing, China, April 2009
• Yi Zhang and Yaqing Niu (2009), "Perceptual Model based Watermarking Scheme in DCT Domain," The Fourth session of image and graphics technology and application academic conference, Beijing, China, April 2009
• Cheng Yang, Jianbo Liu and Yaqing Niu (2007), "Robust Watermark Model based on Subliminal Channel," The International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Security (CIS2007), Harbin, China, December 2007