Patent ID: 8433137

Claim:
An image retrieval apparatus comprising: a feedback analysis unit including: an unlabelled image selector to estimate a relevance of images in an image database and a user's intention to select one or more unlabelled images from the image database, and a main learner to train in a round of a retrieval feedback, estimating relevance of images in the image database and a user's intention, and determining retrieval results, wherein the main learner uses the one or more unlabelled images selected by the unlabelled image selector in the estimating; and a user interface unit, the user interface unit being used to interact with a user of the image retrieval apparatus, and a retrieval result being presented to the user via the user interface unit in the round of the retrieval feedback, and wherein the one or more unlabelled images selected by the unlabelled image selector are one or more images most irrelevant to the user's intention.