CAREER: Quantitative Evaluation Of Attention Models Of Visual Search

视觉搜索是人类每天都在进行的一个过程。在人群中寻找朋友，在停车场里寻找汽车，或者在X光乳房X光检查中寻找肿瘤，都是视觉搜索的例子。视觉搜索包括两个过程，(1)通过眼动来仔细观察视觉场景，将高分辨率的中心凹定位到感兴趣的区域；(2)独立于眼睛位置关注视觉场景中的不同点，以选择相关的视觉信息。三十多年来，研究人员一直在研究视觉注意，并就其功能和在搜索过程中的处理限制提出了不同的理论。这项研究将使用视觉注意模型的新的数学/计算机实现来测试一些现有的和新提出的理论。这一结果将有助于更好地理解视觉注意在视觉搜索中的作用。这项研究还将提供一个新的理论和量化框架，以研究精神分裂症、阿尔茨海默病、注意力缺陷/多动障碍和半忽视患者存在的注意障碍类型。该教育计划将在本科和研究生教育中使用计算机和数学模型来研究视觉注意力。此外，教育计划将包括实施一个网站，允许世界各地的学生和研究人员访问互联网，使用和测试视觉注意力的计算机模型。

Visual search is a process that humans engage in on a daily basis. Looking for a friend in a crowd, a car in a parking lot, or a tumor in an x-ray mammogram are all examples of visual search. Visual search involves two processes, (1) scrutinizing the visual scene by making eye movements to orient the high-resolution fovea to the regions of interest and (2) attending to different points in the visual scene independent of the eye position to select relevant visual information. For over three decades, investigators have studied visual attention and offered different theories about its function and its processing limitations during search. This research will test a number of existing and newly proposed theories using novel mathematical/computer implementations of models of visual attention. The results will allow for a better understanding of the function of visual attention during visual search. The research will also provide a new theoretical and quantitative framework to study the types of attentional disorders present in patients with schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, attentional deficit/hyperactive disorders, and hemi-neglect. The education plan will incorporate the use of computer and mathematical models in the study of visual attention in undergraduate and graduate education. In addition, the education plan will include implementation of a website that will allow students and researchers worldwide Internet access to use and test computer models of visual attention.