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Published on: April 11, 2025
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Global visual salience of competing stimuli
Alex Hernández-García1,2, Ricardo Ramos Gameiro1, Alessandro Grillini3
1Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany.
Journal of Vision
|July 29, 2020
Summary
Global visual salience, crucial for attention competition, is an intrinsic property of natural stimuli. This study shows it
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Computational Vision
- Psychology
Background:
- Current models predict fixation distribution on single images but not attention competition between stimuli.
- The relationship between local visual salience and global salience (effectiveness in attention competition) is unclear.
- The influence of task demands and image familiarity on eye movements in competitive visual scenes needs further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate global visual salience by analyzing first saccade direction in competing visual stimuli.
- To determine if global salience is an independent measure or derived from local salience.
- To assess the impact of task and image familiarity on gaze allocation.
Main Methods:
- Participants freely viewed pairs of images while eye movements were recorded.
- Stimulus pairs varied in image novelty (new vs. familiar) and viewing condition (task vs. task-free).
- A logistic regression model predicted the first fixation location, incorporating global salience, local salience models (GBVS, Deep Gaze), task, familiarity, and lateral bias.
Main Results:
- Global salience, measured by first saccade direction, was predicted accurately by the logistic model.
- Global salience showed minimal correlation with local salience models (GBVS, Deep Gaze), indicating independence.
- Task and familiarity had minor effects on gaze direction, though a left-sided bias was confirmed.
Conclusions:
- Natural stimuli possess an intrinsic global salience that guides initial human gaze.
- Global salience is independent of local, feature-driven salience.
- Task demands and image familiarity exert limited influence on global salience and initial gaze direction.
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