Test the conjecture linking selective downsampling gains to foreground damage under uniform downscaling

Test whether spatially selective downsampling with foreground protection outperforms uniform downscaling specifically on sequences where uniform downscaling causes perceptible foreground damage.

Background

The paper compares PRESLEY’s spatially selective downsampling, which protects a foreground mask, with a uniform configuration that permits degradation across the entire frame. Selective downsampling wins on two sequences, and those same sequences exhibit perceptible foreground degradation under uniform downscaling.

The authors present the relationship as a conjecture rather than an established result. Although the observed correspondence holds for all six evaluated sequences, it was generated from the available data and was not pre-registered, so broader validation is required.

References

And the two sequences selectivity wins (bear and india) are exactly the two where uniform downscaling damages the foreground perceptibly ($+\num{0.087}$ and $+\num{0.101}$ foreground LPIPS) --- offered as a conjecture, concordant on \num{6} of \num{6} but generated by these data and never pre-registered.

— Perceptual Refinement of an End-to-End Video Streaming Pipeline via Generative AI Layers  (2609.19215 - Artioli et al., 16 Sep 2026) in Section 4, subsection “Spatial Selectivity vs. Uniform Downscaling” (Section 4.4)