Abstract

R. Carmi, L. Itti, The Role of Memory in Guiding Attention during Natural Vision, Journal of Vision, Vol. 6, No. 9, pp. 898-914, Aug 2006. [2005 impact factor: 3.469] (Cited by 97)

Abstract: What is the time frame in which perceptual memory guides attention? Current estimates range from a few hundred milliseconds to several seconds, minutes, or even days. Here we answer this question by establishing the time course of attentional selection in realistic viewing conditions. First, we transformed continuous video clips into MTV-style video clips by stringing together continuous clip segments using abrupt transitions (jump cuts). We then asked participants to visually explore either continuous or MTV-style clips, and recorded their saccades as objective behavioral indicators of attentional selections. The utilization of perceptual memory was estimated across viewing conditions and over time by quantifying the agreement between human attentional selections and predictions made by a neurally-grounded computational model. In the critical condition, jump cuts led to sharp declines in the impact of perceptual memory on attentional selection, followed by monotonic increases in memory utilization across 7 consecutive saccades and 2.5 seconds. These results demonstrate that perceptual memory traces play an important role in guiding attention across several saccades during natural vision. We propose novel hypotheses and experiments using hybrid natural-artificial stimuli to further elucidate neurocomputational mechanisms of attentional selection.

Themes: Computational Modeling, Model of Bottom-Up Saliency-Based Visual Attention, Model of Top-Down Attentional Modulation, Human Eye-Tracking Research