Despite significant strides in visual quality assessment, the neural mechanisms underlying visual quality perception remain insufficiently explored. This study employed fMRI to examine brain activity during image quality assessment and identify differences in human processing of images with varying quality. Fourteen healthy participants underwent tasks assessing both image quality and content classification while undergoing functional MRI scans. The collected behavioral data was statistically analyzed, and univariate and functional connectivity analyses were conducted on the imaging data. The findings revealed that quality assessment is a more complex task than content classification, involving enhanced activation in high-level cognitive brain regions for fine-grained visual analysis. Moreover, the research showed the brain's adaptability to different visual inputs, adopting different strategies depending on the input's quality. In response to high-quality images, the brain primarily uses specialized visual areas for precise analysis, whereas with low-quality images, it recruits additional resources including higher-order visual cortices and related cognitive and attentional networks to decode and recognize complex, ambiguous signals effectively. This study pioneers the intersection of neuroscience and image quality research, providing empirical evidence through fMRI linking image quality to neural processing. It contributes novel insights into the human visual system's response to diverse image qualities, thereby paving the way for advancements in objective image quality assessment algorithms.

翻译：尽管视觉质量评估领域取得了显著进展，但支撑视觉质量感知的神经机制仍未得到充分探索。本研究采用fMRI技术，考察了图像质量评估过程中大脑的活动状态，并识别了人类处理不同质量图像时的差异。14名健康被试在完成图像质量评估与内容分类任务的同时接受了功能性磁共振扫描。对采集的行为数据进行了统计分析，并对影像数据开展了单变量分析与功能连接分析。研究结果表明，质量评估较内容分类更为复杂，涉及负责精细视觉分析的高级认知脑区的增强激活。此外，研究揭示了大脑对不同视觉输入的适应性，会根据输入质量采取不同策略：面对高质量图像时，大脑主要调用专用视觉区域进行精确分析；而处理低质量图像时，则调动包括高级视觉皮层及相关认知与注意网络在内的额外资源，以有效解码和识别复杂模糊的信号。本研究开创了神经科学与图像质量研究的交叉领域，通过fMRI提供了将图像质量与神经处理过程相联系的经验证据，为人类视觉系统对不同图像质量的响应机制贡献了新见解，从而为客观图像质量评估算法的进步铺平了道路。