Hierarchical Bayesian Modelling of Visual Attention

Jinhua Xu

2014

Abstract

The brain employs interacting bottom-up and top-down processes to speed up searching and recognizing visual targets relevant to specific behavioral tasks. In this paper, we proposed a Bayesian model of visual attention that optimally integrates top-down, goal-driven attention and bottom-up, stimulus-driven visual saliency. In this approach, we formulated a multi-scale hierarchical model of objects in natural contexts, where the computing nodes at the higher levels have lower resolutions and larger sizes than the nodes at the lower levels, and provide local contexts for the nodes at the lower levels. The conditional probability of a visual variable given its context is calculated in an efficient way. The model entails several existing models of visual attention as its special cases. We tested this model as a predictor of human fixations in free-viewing and object searching tasks in natural scenes and found that the model performed very well.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Xu J. (2014). Hierarchical Bayesian Modelling of Visual Attention . In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications - Volume 1: VISAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2014) ISBN 978-989-758-003-1, pages 347-358. DOI: 10.5220/0004731303470358

in Bibtex Style

@conference{visapp14,
author={Jinhua Xu},
title={Hierarchical Bayesian Modelling of Visual Attention},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications - Volume 1: VISAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2014)},
year={2014},
pages={347-358},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004731303470358},
isbn={978-989-758-003-1},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications - Volume 1: VISAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2014)
TI - Hierarchical Bayesian Modelling of Visual Attention
SN - 978-989-758-003-1
AU - Xu J.
PY - 2014
SP - 347
EP - 358
DO - 10.5220/0004731303470358