Psychological potential field and human eye fixation on binary line-drawing images: A comparative experimental study

Quantitatively evaluating the psychological and perceptual effects of objects is an important issue,but is difficult. In cognitive studies, the psychological potential field(PPF), which represents psychological intensities in vision and can be calculated by applying computational algorithms to digital images, may help with this issue. Although studies have reported using the PPF to evaluate psychological effects, such as impressions, detailed investigations on how the PPF represents psychological perception and its limitations have not yet been performed. Another relevant tool is the fixation map, which visualizes human eye fixations;this map is generated from actual measurements acquired by eye-tracking and does not represent psychological effects directly. Although the PPF and the fixation map are based on visual imaging, they have never been compared. In this paper, we do so for the first time, using psychological and perceptual properties of line-drawing images. The results demonstrate the difference between these methods, including their representation of different properties with respect to visual perception. Moreover, the similarity between the two methods highlights the possibility of assessing perceptual phenomena such as categorization and cognition of objects based on human vision.

Wayfinding design in transportation architecture-are saliency models or designer visual attention a good predictor of passenger visual attention?

In transportation architecture,wayfinding quality is a crucial factor for determining transfer efficiency and level of service.When developing architectural design concepts,designers often employ their visual attention to imagine where passengers will look.A saliency model is a software program that can predict human visual attention.This research examined whether a saliency model or designer visual attention is a good predictor of passenger visual attention during wayfinding in side transportation architecture.Using a remote eye-tracking system,the eye-movements of 29 participants watching 100 still images depicting different indoor seenes of transportation architecture were recorded and transformed into saliency maps to illustrate participants'visual attention.Participants were categorized as either"designers"or"laypeople"based on their architectural design expertise.Similarities were compared among the"designers'"visual attention,saliency model predictions,and"laypeople's"visual attention.The results showed that while the"designers'"visual attention was the best predictor of that of"laypeople",followed by saliency models,a single desig ner's visual attend on was not a good predictor.The divergence in visual attention highlights the limitation of designers in predicting passenger wayfinding behavior and implies that integrating a saliency model in practice can be beneficial for wayfinding design.