The Role of Scene Gist and Spatial Dependency among Objects in the Semantic Guidance of Attention

Chia Chien Wu, Hsueh Cheng Wang, Marc Pomplun

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

A previous study (Hwang et al., 2011) found evidence for semantic guidance of visual attention during the inspection of real-world scenes, i.e., an influence of semantic relationships among scene objects on overt shifts of attention. In particular, the results revealed an observer bias toward gaze transitions between semantically similar objects. However, these results are not necessarily indicative of semantic processing of individual objects but may be confounded by knowledge of the scene gist, which does not require object recognition (Torralba et al., 2006), or by known spatial dependency among objects (Oliva & Torralba, 2007). To examine the mechanisms underlying semantic guidance, in the present study, subjects were asked to view a series of displays with the scene gist removed and spatial dependency varied. Our results confirm the previous finding of semantic guidance and show that it is not entirely due to either the effect of scene gist or the spatial dependency among objects. Even without scene gist or spatial dependency, subjects still retrieved semantic information to guide their attention. This strategy may facilitate scene understanding and object memorization.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCooperative Minds
Subtitle of host publicationSocial Interaction and Group Dynamics - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2013
EditorsMarkus Knauff, Natalie Sebanz, Michael Pauen, Ipke Wachsmuth
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages1617-1622
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780976831891
StatePublished - 2013
Event35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society - Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics, CogSci 2013 - Berlin, Germany
Duration: 31 Jul 20133 Aug 2013

Publication series

NameCooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2013

Conference

Conference35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society - Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics, CogSci 2013
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityBerlin
Period31/07/133/08/13

Keywords

  • Attention
  • eye movements
  • real-world scenes
  • semantics
  • visual guidance

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The Role of Scene Gist and Spatial Dependency among Objects in the Semantic Guidance of Attention'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this