Non-Stationarity Detection in Natural Images

We present a novel approach for non-stationarity detection in natural images by exploiting the prior knowledge of the independent component structure of scene statistics. Our proposed non-stationarity index is conceptually simple and is intertwined with the probabilistic structure of the image segment being analyzed. It shows consistently good results when applied to natural scenes and, we expect, will find useful applications in computer vision algorithms in as much as the detection of statistically non-stationary locations in images can be an important preliminary step toward the understanding of scene content and in the guiding of visual fixations.