Patent ID: 7440930

Claim:
A computer program product, tangibly stored on a computer-readable medium, the product comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to perform operations comprising: training an attentional cascade, the attentional cascade being an ordered sequence of detector functions recorded on a machine-readable storage device, the detector functions being functions that when executed by a computer examine a target image and return a positive result if the target image resembles an object of interest and a negative result if the target image does not resemble the object of interest, where a positive result from one detector function leads to consideration of the target image by the next detector function and a negative result from any detector function leads to rejection of the target image, wherein training the attentional cascade includes: training each detector function in sequence starting with the first detector function, wherein training each detector function includes: selecting a counter-example set, the counter-example set including images not resembling the object of interest, wherein selecting the counter-example set includes selecting only images that are at least a minimum difference from an example set, the example set including images resembling the object of interest; and training the detector function using only the example set and the counter-example set.