Steering visual attention in natural scenes: efficient image rendition by actively guiding fixation

场景中物体或区域的哪些特征会引起注意？过去几十年的研究已经确定了几个基本特征，包括运动、颜色、亮度对比度和方向。这些信息对于理解生物在与环境的相互作用中使用的机制和策略非常重要。奇怪的是，关于物体或区域的哪些特性不会引起注意的研究要少得多。除了提高我们对生物视觉的理解外，这种知识在信道容量有限的图像和视频编码等应用中也可能是重要的。如果图像的一个区域很少或根本没有受到观看者的注意，则需要为其表示分配较少的频道带宽。此外，如果可以通过应用图像处理方法来主动影响特定位置吸引注意力的概率，那么可能需要更少的带宽。本工作的总体目标是更好地理解在自然观看下自然场景的哪些区域被不完全或根本没有表示，并确定如何使用该信息将注意力引导到图像的其他区域，以实现电子显示系统或更有效的广告或标志的最佳图像编码。两个实际的成果是减少视频带宽的试点计划和结合图像处理的实时图像显示，以指导对重要区域的固定。

What features of an object or region of a scene attract attention? Research over the last few decades has identified several basic features, including movement, colour, brightness contrast, and orientation. This information is important in understanding the mechanisms and strategies that seeing organisms use in their interactions with the environment. Curiously, much less research has been carried out on what properties of objects or regions do not attract attention. In addition to improving our understanding of biological vision, this knowledge could be important in applications such as image and video coding where there is limited channel capacity. If a region of an image receives little or no attention by a viewer, then less channel bandwidth need be allocated to its representation. If, moreover, it is possible to actively influence the probability of a particular location attracting attention by applying image-processing methods, then still less bandwidth might be required. The general aim of the present work is to understand better what regions of a natural scene are represented incompletely or not at all under natural viewing and to determine how this information might be used to steer attention towards other areas of an image to achieve optimum image coding for an electronic display system or more effective advertising or signage. Two practical deliverables are a pilot scheme for reducing video bandwidth and a real-time image display that incorporates image processing to guide fixation to important regions.