<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a viewer to easily discriminate a target and pay his/her attention to the target by automatically selecting a parameter of visual characteristic of the target to the background. <P>SOLUTION: The average characteristic of an area 100 is calculated, and the covariance of the area 100 is determined. This covariance is inverted to generate an inverse covariance, a target characteristic is evaluated to determine the difference between the average characteristic and the target characteristic. The difference is transposed to generate a transposed matrix of difference, and conspicuity is determined from the product obtained by multiplying the transposed matrix of difference by the inverse covariance multiplied by the difference. This conspicuity is compared with one acceptance reference. When the conspicuity does not satisfy the acceptance reference, the target characteristic is adjusted, and the difference determination step, the difference transposition step, the conspicuity determination step and the conspicuity comparison step are repeated. When the notability satisfies the acceptance reference, the target characteristic is outputted. According to this, an object 130 is visually emphasized from other attention diffusing matters 120. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO&NCIPI 
METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY CHOOSING VISUAL CHARACTERISTIC TO HIGHLIGHT TARGET AGAINST BACKGROUND