The ultrasonic observation apparatus uses a feature amount calculating section for calculating a plurality of kinds of features based on a received signal received from an analyte, and a characteristic quantity defined in accordance with a previously selected classification item among the plurality of characteristic quantities calculated by the feature amount calculating section A classification section for classifying the attributes of the tissue of the sample and assigning the visual information corresponding to the classification result to each pixel of the image based on the received signal and the feature amount image superimposed on the visual information assigned to each pixel of the image based on the received signal A feature image data generating section for generating image data is provided.超音波観測装置は、検体から受信した受信信号に基づいて複数種類の特徴量を算出する特徴量算出部と、前記特徴量算出部が算出した前記複数種類の特徴量のうち、予め選択された分類項目に応じて定められる特徴量を用いて前記検体の組織の属性を分類し、分類結果に応じた視覚情報を前記受信信号に基づく画像の各画素に対して割り当てる分類部と、前記受信信号に基づく画像の各画素に割り当てられた前記視覚情報を重畳した特徴量画像データを生成する特徴量画像データ生成部と、を備える。
