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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12486 |
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| _version_ | 1866917272216403968 |
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| author | Gizdov, Andrey Procopio, Andrea Li, Yichen Harari, Daniel Ullman, Tomer |
| author_facet | Gizdov, Andrey Procopio, Andrea Li, Yichen Harari, Daniel Ullman, Tomer |
| contents | Humans appear to represent objects for intuitive physics with coarse, volumetric bodies'' that smooth concavities - trading fine visual details for efficient physical predictions - yet their internal structure is largely unknown. Segmentation models, in contrast, optimize pixel-accurate masks that may misalign with such bodies. We ask whether and when these models nonetheless acquire human-like bodies. Using a time-to-collision (TTC) behavioral paradigm, we introduce a comparison pipeline and alignment metric, then vary model training time, size, and effective capacity via pruning. Across all manipulations, alignment with human behavior follows an inverse U-shaped curve: small/briefly trained/pruned models under-segment into blobs; large/fully trained models over-segment with boundary wiggles; and an intermediate ideal body granularity'' best matches humans. This suggests human-like coarse bodies emerge from resource constraints rather than bespoke biases, and points to simple knobs - early checkpoints, modest architectures, light pruning - for eliciting physics-efficient representations. We situate these results within resource-rational accounts balancing recognition detail against physical affordances. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_12486 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Human-Like Coarse Object Representations in Vision Models Gizdov, Andrey Procopio, Andrea Li, Yichen Harari, Daniel Ullman, Tomer Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Artificial Intelligence Humans appear to represent objects for intuitive physics with coarse, volumetric bodies'' that smooth concavities - trading fine visual details for efficient physical predictions - yet their internal structure is largely unknown. Segmentation models, in contrast, optimize pixel-accurate masks that may misalign with such bodies. We ask whether and when these models nonetheless acquire human-like bodies. Using a time-to-collision (TTC) behavioral paradigm, we introduce a comparison pipeline and alignment metric, then vary model training time, size, and effective capacity via pruning. Across all manipulations, alignment with human behavior follows an inverse U-shaped curve: small/briefly trained/pruned models under-segment into blobs; large/fully trained models over-segment with boundary wiggles; and an intermediate ideal body granularity'' best matches humans. This suggests human-like coarse bodies emerge from resource constraints rather than bespoke biases, and points to simple knobs - early checkpoints, modest architectures, light pruning - for eliciting physics-efficient representations. We situate these results within resource-rational accounts balancing recognition detail against physical affordances. |
| title | Human-Like Coarse Object Representations in Vision Models |
| topic | Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Artificial Intelligence |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12486 |