Patent ID: 7668341

Claim:
An image recognition apparatus comprising: image information acquisition means for capturing image information of an image of an area taken on a road; road feature information acquisition means for acquiring, from map information stored in a map information database, road feature information associated with features in the neighborhood of the imaged area; and image information recognition means for using the road feature information to recognize, in the image information, images of recognition targets corresponding to the features associated with the acquired road feature information, wherein the image information recognition means detects in the image information, based on the road feature information, portions of the imaged area likely to include the image of a recognition target, and adjusts, based on the detection result, a recognition algorithm such that a criterion used to determine whether an image of interest is an image of the recognition target becomes lower for the portions of the imaged area likely to include the image of the recognition target than for the remainder of the imaged area.