Abstract

L. Itti, C. Koch, Computational Modelling of Visual Attention, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 194-203, Mar 2001. [2002 impact factor: 24.047] (Cited by 6120)

Abstract: Five important trends have emerged from recent work on computational models of focal visual attention that emphasize the bottom-up, image-based control of attentional deployment. First, the perceptual saliency of stimuli critically depends on the surrounding context. Second, a unique saliency map that topographically encodes for stimulus conspicuity over the visual scene has proved to be an efficient and plausible bottom-up control strategy. Third, inhibition of return, the process by which the currently attended location is prevented from being attended again, is a crucial element of attentional deployment. Fourth, attention and eye movements tightly interplay, posing computational challenges with respect to the coordinate system used to control attention. And last, scene understanding and object recognition strongly constrain the selection of attended locations. Insights from these five key areas provide a framework for a computational and neurobiological understanding of visual attention.

Themes: Computational Modeling, Model of Bottom-Up Saliency-Based Visual Attention, Model of Top-Down Attentional Modulation, Review Articles and Chapters