Visual Search and Saliency
Visual search remains one of the difficult problems confronting both vision science and computer vision. Being able to find the locations of objects in images presents innumerable applications, including Internet search, driverless cars, automatic navigation, virtual reality, and much more. Similarly, understanding why and where humans cast their visual gaze is another key problem, since it affects the success of visual search by both human and machine, and can be used to improve the efficiency of imaging systems, image processing algorithms, and vision systems. LIVE has been deeply involved in studies of visual search and saliency, and their applications to perceptual image processing problems, such as distortion detection and video coding, for many years. Some of the key papers follow:
W.N. Klarquist and A.C. Bovik, “FOVEA: A foveated, multi-fixation, vergent active stereo system for dynamic three-dimensional scene recovery,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 755-770, October 1998.
Z. Wang, L. Lu and A.C. Bovik, “Foveation scalable video coding with automatic fixation selection," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 243-254, February 2003.
R. Raj, W.S. Geisler, R.A. Frazor and A.C. Bovik, “Contrast statistics for foveated vision systems: fixation selection by minimizing contrast entropy,” Journal of the Optical Society of America, vol. 22, no. 10, pp. 2039-2049, October 2005.
U. Rajashekar, L.K. Cormack and A.C. Bovik, “Visual search in noise: Revealing the influence of structural cues by gaze-contingent classification image analysis,” Journal of Vision, Special Issue on Finding Visual Features: Using Stochastic Stimuli, vol. 6, no. 4, art. 7, pp. 379-386, April 2006.
U. Rajashekar, T. Arnow, A.C. Bovik and L.K. Cormack, “Gaze-centric image analysis for efficient visual search,” SPIE Newsroom, [Online]. Available: http://newsroom.spie.org/x3117.xml, June, 2006.
A. Tavassoli, I. van der Linde, L.K. Cormack and A.C. Bovik, “An efficient technique for exposing visual search strategies with classification images,” Journal of Perception & Psychophysics, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 103-113, 2007.
U. Rajashekar, I. van der Linde, A.C. Bovik and L.K. Cormack, “Foveated analysis of image features at fixations,” Vision Research, vol. 47, no. 25, pp. 3160-3172, November 2007.
A. Tavasolli, I. Van der Linde, A.C. Bovik and L.K. Cormack, “Orientation anisotropies in visual search revealed by noise,” Journal of Vision, vol. 7, no. 12, art. 11, pp. 1-8, December 2007.
T. Arnow and A.C. Bovik, “Foveated visual search for corners,” IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 813-823, March 2007.
U. Rajashekar, I. van der Linde, A.C. Bovik and L.K. Cormack, “GAFFE: A gaze-attentive fixation finding engine,” IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 564- 573, April 2008.
A. Tavassoli, I. van der Linde, A.C. Bovik and L.K. Cormack, “Eye movements selective for spatial frequency and orientation during active visual search,” Vision Research, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 173-181, January 2009.
I. van der Linde, U. Rajashekar, A.C. Bovik and L.K. Cormack, “DOVES: A database of visual eye movements,” Spatial Vision, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 161-177, February 2009.
A.K. Moorthy and A.C. Bovik, “Visual importance pooling for image quality assessment,” IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing, Special Issue on Visual Media Quality Assessment, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 193-201, April 2009.
I. van der Linde, U. Rajashekar, A.C. Bovik and L.K. Cormack, “Visual memory for fixated regions of natural scenes dissociates attraction and recognition,” Perception, vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 1152 – 1171, August 2009.
Y. Liu, L.K. Cormack and A.C. Bovik, “Dichotomy between luminance and disparity features at binocular fixations,” Journal of Vision, vol. 10, no. 12:23, pp. 1-17, December 2010.
H. Ha, J. Park, S. Lee and A.C. Bovik, “Perceptually unequal packet loss protection by weighting saliency and error propagation,” IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, vol. 20, no. 9, pp. 1187-1199, September 2010.
M.-J. Chen, A.C. Bovik and L.K. Cormack, “Study of distortion conspicuity on stereoscopically viewed 3D images,” Journal of the Society for Information Display, vol. 21 no. 11, pp. 491-503, November 2013.
H. Kim, S. Lee and A.C. Bovik, “Saliency measurement on stereoscopic videos,” IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 1476-1490, April 2014.
L. Duan, T. Xi, S. Cui, H. Qi and A.C. Bovik, “A spatiotemporal weighted dissimilarity- based method for video saliency detection,” Signal Processing: Image Communication, vol. 38, pp. 45-56, October 2015.