1. A method for detecting an object in an object detection device, the method comprising: receiving a plurality of training images, at least one of the training images including a plurality of components of an object; forming a statistical model from a mean and a covariance matrix of the components of each training image; detecting a plurality of components in an input image using a component detector that is trained with the training images; determining a covariance matrix for each of the detected components; and matching a probabilistic observation comprising the covariance matrixes of the detected components with a probabilistic model comprising the mean and covariance matrixes of the statistical model to detect the object.