Scene statistics is a discipline within the field of perception

Perception

Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...

. It is concerned with the statistical regularities related to scenes

Scene (perception)

In the field of perception, a scene is information that can flow from a physical environment into a perceptual system via sensory transduction....

. It is based on the premise that a perceptual system

Perceptual system

A perceptual system is a computational system designed to make inferences about properties of a physical environment based on scenes. Other definitions may exist....

 is designed to interpret scenes

Scene (perception)

In the field of perception, a scene is information that can flow from a physical environment into a perceptual system via sensory transduction....

.

Biological perceptual systems have evolved in response to physical properties of natural environments. Therefore natural scenes receive a great deal of attention.

Natural scene statistics are useful for defining the behavior of an ideal observer

Ideal Observer Analysis

Ideal observer analysis is a method for investigating how information is processed in a perceptual system. It is also a basic principle that guides modern research in perception....

 in a natural task, typically by incorporating signal detection theory

Detection theory

Detection theory, or signal detection theory, is a means to quantify the ability to discern between information-bearing energy patterns and random energy patterns that distract from the information Detection theory, or signal detection theory, is a means to quantify the ability to discern between...

, information theory

Information theory

Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...

, or estimation theory

Estimation theory

Estimation theory is a branch of statistics and signal processing that deals with estimating the values of parameters based on measured/empirical data that has a random component. The parameters describe an underlying physical setting in such a way that their value affects the distribution of the...

.

Within-domain versus across-domain

Geisler (2008) distinguishes between four kinds of domains: (1) Physical environments, (2) Images/Scenes, (3) Neural responses, and (4) Behavior.

Within the domain of images/scenes, one can study the characteristics of information related to redundancy and efficient coding.

Across-domain statistics determine how an autonomous system should make inferences about its environment, process information, and control its behavior. To study these statistics, it is necessary to sample or register information in multiple domains simultaneously.
The image above was generated from a database of segmented leaves that simultaneously registers natural images (scene information) with the exact locations of leaf boundaries (information about the physical environment). Such a database can be used to study across-domain statistics.

Many papers have been published in the area of scene statistics.