On the Role of Individual Differences in Current Approaches to Computational Image Aesthetics

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Chen, Li-Wei, Strafforello, Ombretta, Maerten, Anne-Sofie, Tuytelaars, Tinne, Wagemans, Johan
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Chen, Li-Wei
Strafforello, Ombretta
Maerten, Anne-Sofie
Tuytelaars, Tinne
Wagemans, Johan
author_facet Chen, Li-Wei
Strafforello, Ombretta
Maerten, Anne-Sofie
Tuytelaars, Tinne
Wagemans, Johan
contents Image aesthetic assessment (IAA) evaluates image aesthetics, a task complicated by image diversity and user subjectivity. Current approaches address this in two stages: Generic IAA (GIAA) models estimate mean aesthetic scores, while Personal IAA (PIAA) models adapt GIAA using transfer learning to incorporate user subjectivity. However, a theoretical understanding of transfer learning between GIAA and PIAA, particularly concerning the impact of group composition, group size, aesthetic differences between groups and individuals, and demographic correlations, is lacking. This work establishes a theoretical foundation for IAA, proposing a unified model that encodes individual characteristics in a distributional format for both individual and group assessments. We show that transferring from GIAA to PIAA involves extrapolation, while the reverse involves interpolation, which is generally more effective for machine learning. Extensive experiments with varying group compositions, including sub-sampling by group size and disjoint demographics, reveal substantial performance variation even for GIAA, challenging the assumption that averaging scores eliminates individual subjectivity. Score-distribution analysis using Earth Mover's Distance (EMD) and the Gini index identifies education, photography experience, and art experience as key factors in aesthetic differences, with greater subjectivity in artworks than in photographs. Code is available at https://github.com/lwchen6309/aesthetics_transfer_learning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_20518
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the Role of Individual Differences in Current Approaches to Computational Image Aesthetics
Chen, Li-Wei
Strafforello, Ombretta
Maerten, Anne-Sofie
Tuytelaars, Tinne
Wagemans, Johan
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Image aesthetic assessment (IAA) evaluates image aesthetics, a task complicated by image diversity and user subjectivity. Current approaches address this in two stages: Generic IAA (GIAA) models estimate mean aesthetic scores, while Personal IAA (PIAA) models adapt GIAA using transfer learning to incorporate user subjectivity. However, a theoretical understanding of transfer learning between GIAA and PIAA, particularly concerning the impact of group composition, group size, aesthetic differences between groups and individuals, and demographic correlations, is lacking. This work establishes a theoretical foundation for IAA, proposing a unified model that encodes individual characteristics in a distributional format for both individual and group assessments. We show that transferring from GIAA to PIAA involves extrapolation, while the reverse involves interpolation, which is generally more effective for machine learning. Extensive experiments with varying group compositions, including sub-sampling by group size and disjoint demographics, reveal substantial performance variation even for GIAA, challenging the assumption that averaging scores eliminates individual subjectivity. Score-distribution analysis using Earth Mover's Distance (EMD) and the Gini index identifies education, photography experience, and art experience as key factors in aesthetic differences, with greater subjectivity in artworks than in photographs. Code is available at https://github.com/lwchen6309/aesthetics_transfer_learning.
title On the Role of Individual Differences in Current Approaches to Computational Image Aesthetics
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.20518