INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE CAPTURING APPARATUS, CONTROL SYSTEM APPLICABLE TO MOVEABLE APPARATUS, INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD, AND CARRIER MEDIUM OF PROGRAM OF METHOD

An information processing apparatus (20) for processing stereo images of an object captured from a plurality of viewpoints to recognize the object includes a disparity calculator (32) to calculate a disparity of the stereo images by using a matching process. The disparity calculator (32) includes an evaluation value calculator (41) to calculate a correlation evaluation value in a search range set for the stereo images; an extreme value detector (43) to detect an extreme value of the correlation evaluation value calculated by the evaluation value calculator (41); a threshold setting unit (44) to set a threshold range for the detected extreme value; a counting unit (46, 55) to count the number of the extreme value existing within the threshold range; and an updating unit (44) to update the set threshold range to a new threshold range when a new extreme value indicating a higher correlation level of the disparity compared to the set threshold range is detected. The counting unit (46, 55) counts the number of the extreme value in a threshold range updated most recently in the search range.