  Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have been repeatedly proven to
perform well on image classification tasks. Object detection methods, however,
are still in need of significant improvements. In this paper, we propose a new
framework called Ventral-Dorsal Networks (VDNets) which is inspired by the
structure of the human visual system. Roughly, the visual input signal is
analyzed along two separate neural streams, one in the temporal lobe and the
other in the parietal lobe. The coarse functional distinction between these
streams is between object recognition -- the "what" of the signal -- and
extracting location related information -- the "where" of the signal. The
ventral pathway from primary visual cortex, entering the temporal lobe, is
dominated by "what" information, while the dorsal pathway, into the parietal
lobe, is dominated by "where" information. Inspired by this structure, we
propose the integration of a "Ventral Network" and a "Dorsal Network", which
are complementary. Information about object identity can guide localization,
and location information can guide attention to relevant image regions,
improving object recognition. This new dual network framework sharpens the
focus of object detection. Our experimental results reveal that the proposed
method outperforms state-of-the-art object detection approaches on PASCAL VOC
2007 by 8% (mAP) and PASCAL VOC 2012 by 3% (mAP). Moreover, a comparison of
techniques on Yearbook images displays substantial qualitative and quantitative
benefits of VDNet.
