Method and apparatus for facilitating query reformulation

Abstract

A method and apparatus for verifying a query to provide feedback to users for query reformulation. By utilizing selectivity statistics for semantic and visual characteristics of image objects, query verification “examines” user queries and allows users to reformulate queries through system feedback. Feedback information provided to the user includes (1) the maximum and minimum number of matches for the query; (2) alternatives for both semantic and visual-based query elements; and (3) estimated numbers of matching images. Additional types of feedback information may also be provided. With this feedback, the users know if the query criteria is too tight (i.e. too few matches will be retrieved) or too loose (i.e. too many matches will be retrieved) so that they can relax, refine, or reformulate queries or leave queries unchanged accordingly. Only after queries are verified to have a high possibility of meaningful results, are the queries processed. Through this type of systematic feedback, users can query and explore multimedia databases, for example, by honing in on target images without expensive query processing. This provides a reduction in expensive query processing and system load.

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