Cognitive image processing: the time is right to recognize that the world does not rest more on turtles and elephants

Abstract

Traditional image processing is a field of science and technology developed to facilitate human-centered image management. But today, when huge volumes of visual data inundate our surroundings (due to the explosive growth of image-capturing devices, proliferation of Internet communication means and video sharing services over the World Wide Web), human-centered handling of Big-data flows is impossible anymore. Therefore, it has to be replaced with a machine (computer) supported counterpart. Of course, such an artificial counterpart must be equipped with some cognitive abilities, usually characteristic for a human being. Indeed, in the past decade, a new computer design trend - Cognitive Computer development - is become visible. Cognitive image processing definitely will be one of its main duties. It must be specially mentioned that this trend is a particular case of a much more general movement - the transition from a "computational data-processing paradigm" to a "cognitive information-processing paradigm", which affects today many fields of science, technology, and engineering. This transition is a blessed novelty, but its success is hampered by the lack of a clear delimitation between the notion of data and the notion of information. Elaborating the case of cognitive image processing, the paper intends to clarify these important research issues.