Apparatus and method for improving the performance of a threshold-based detector or classifier, or a generic detector or classifier and increasing the probability of detecting at least one object in an image using novel algorithms and stochastic resonance noise is provided, where a suitable dose of noise is introduced to the image data such that the performance of the above-referenced detectors or classifiers is improved without altering the detectors or classifiers parameters. Several stochastic resonance (SR) noise-based detection and classification enhancement schemes are presented. The SR noise-enhanced detection and classification schemes can improve any algorithms and systems. To implement these schemes, the only knowledge that is needed is the original input data (no matter 1D, 2D, 3D or others) and the output (detection results) of the existing algorithms and systems.
