The semantic gap in image retrieval refers to the disconnect between how humans perceive and interpret visual content versus how it is represented in computational systems. Humans understand images in terms of meaning, while computers rely on low-level features like color, texture, and shape. This gap arises because computational models struggle to associate these low-level features with high-level concepts. For example, a person recognizes a "beach" scene by understanding elements like water, sand, and sky, but a computer only processes pixel-level patterns that may not fully capture the semantic meaning. Bridging the semantic gap is a central challenge in image retrieval. Techniques like deep learning have advanced the field by learning representations closer to human understanding. For instance, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can identify objects in images, making search results more relevant to user queries.
What is 'semantic gap' in image retrieval?

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