Natural Image Statistics Differ for Fixated Vs. Non-Fixated Regions V. Yanulevskaya, J. M. Geusebroek, J. B. C. Marsman, F. Cornelissen In Perception 2008. [bibtex] [pdf] [url]

Knowing why we direct our gaze to particular locations in images is important for understanding image interpretation. We hypothesized that under natural free viewing conditions our gaze is first drawn to image regions that statistically differ from the rest of the image. To test this, we computed local image statistics for the regions where subjects fixated during a free viewing task and compared these to the statistics of randomly selected (non-fixated) patches. In particular, we focus on the distribution of contrasts and edges in natural images, which is well described by the two-parameter Weibull distribution. Besides the contrast parameter, we also consider edge frequency as an additional attractor. In the experiment, we used National Geographic photos as stimuli. Our results demonstrate significantly different distributions of Weibull parameters for fixated and non-fixated image regions. The results identify both contrast and edge frequency to be cues for attention. Hence, natural image statistics as captured by the two-parameter Weibull distribution could play a role in determining where we direct our first few saccades.

@Article{YanulevskayaPerception2008,
  author       = "Yanulevskaya, V. and Geusebroek, J. M. and Marsman, J. B. C. and Cornelissen, F.",
  title        = "Natural Image Statistics Differ for Fixated Vs. Non-Fixated Regions",
  journal      = "Perception",
  number       = "supplement",
  volume       = "37",
  pages        = "56",
  year         = "2008",
  url          = "https://ivi.fnwi.uva.nl/isis/publications/2008/YanulevskayaPerception2008",
  pdf          = "https://ivi.fnwi.uva.nl/isis/publications/2008/YanulevskayaPerception2008/YanulevskayaPerception2008.pdf",
  has_image    = 1
}