Report on exploratory research which investigated image attributes in a series of describing tasks. Results suggest that access to a wide range of attributes is needed to address all facets of interest and that certain classes of attributes may appear more frequently (literal objects, human form and associated attributes, color, and location).…

Presents exploratory research evaluating a conceptual structure for the description of visual content of images. The structure classifies visual attributes into a "Pyramid" containing four syntactic levels and six semantic levels. Experiments performed suggest the Pyramid is conceptually robust and can be used to: organize visual content…

Discusses advancements in imaging technology and increased user access to digital images, as well as efforts to develop adequate indexing and retrieval methods for image databases. Describes preliminary results of a study of undergraduates that explored the attributes naive subjects use to describe scientific diagrams. (Author/LRW)

Provides an introduction to articles in this special "Perspectives" issue of "Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology." The articles, taken collectively, contain significant elements of a research agenda in image indexing and retrieval for the next decade. Articles focus on user, representation,…

A template for pictorial image description to be used by novice image searchers in recording their descriptions of images was tested; image attribute classes derived in previous research were used to model the template. Results indicated that users may need training and/or more guidance to correctly assign descriptors to higher-level classes.…