Variable resolution images and their effects on eye movements during free viewing

Earlier studies have shown that while free-viewing images people tend to gaze at regions with a high local density of bottom up features such as contrast and edge density. In particular, this tendency seems to be more emphasized during the first few fixations after image onset. In this paper, we present a new method to investigate how gaze locations are chosen by introducing varying image resolution, and measure how it affects eye-movement behavior during free viewing. Results show that gaze density overall is shifted toward regions presented in high resolution over those degraded in resolution. However, certain image regions seem to attract early fixations regardless of display resolution. These results suggest that top-down control of gaze guidance may be the dominant factor early in visual processing.