IMAGE RECOGNITION APPARATUS AND PROGRAM FOR RECOGNIZING THE SUBSTANCE OF AN IMAGE, PARTICULARLY IN A MOTION PICTURE ENVIRONMENT

A relatively inexpensive image recognition apparatus offering a high image recognition rate. An image recognition apparatus recognizes movements of players matched against each other between domains partitioned with obstacles from content including a television program being telecasted to show the sport match or game, image material in an uncompleted state for broadcasting and content recorded in such a recording medium as a VTR, the image recognition apparatus including: a score information obtaining section; a play event information obtaining section obtaining movements of players from picture information, the picture information containing images of obstacles and players, the score information displayed on a screen; and an image substance recognizing section making a comparison between score information item obtained immediately before a time in the play event information and a score information item obtained immediately after a time, thereby recognizing a substance of an image provided by the play event information.