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. 2012 Jun 19;12(6):26.
doi: 10.1167/12.6.26.

The attraction of visual attention to texts in real-world scenes

Hsueh-Cheng Wang  1 , Marc Pomplun
Affiliations

The attraction of visual attention to texts in real-world scenes

Hsueh-Cheng Wang et al. J Vis. .

Abstract

When we look at real-world scenes, attention seems disproportionately attracted by texts that are embedded in these scenes, for instance, on signs or billboards. The present study was aimed at verifying the existence of this bias and investigating its underlying factors. For this purpose, data from a previous experiment were reanalyzed and four new experiments measuring eye movements during the viewing of real-world scenes were conducted. By pairing text objects with matching control objects and regions, the following main results were obtained: (a) Greater fixation probability and shorter minimum fixation distance of texts confirmed the higher attractiveness of texts; (b) the locations where texts are typically placed contribute partially to this effect; (c) specific visual features of texts, rather than typically salient features (e.g., color, orientation, and contrast), are the main attractors of attention; (d) the meaningfulness of texts does not add to their attentional capture; and (e) the attraction of attention depends to some extent on the observer's familiarity with the writing system and language of a given text.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Texts (yellow polygons) and their paired control regions (green polygons) in one of the scene stimuli. The corresponding saliency and edge-content information are illustrated in (b) and (c).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Fixation probability and minimum fixation distance of texts, non-texts, and control regions in Experiment 1. In this chart and all following ones, error bars are based on 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) Erased texts (yellow polygons) and their paired control regions (green polygons) in a sample stimulus for Experiment 2. The corresponding saliency and edge-content information are illustrated in (b) and (c). Note that the saliency and edge-content information of erased texts regions were reduced compared to Figure 1, and therefore the control regions were chosen differently.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Fixation probability and minimum fixation distance of texts, non-texts, and control regions in Experiment 2.
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) Unconstrained texts (yellow polygons) placed in front of homogeneous (right) and inhomogeneous backgrounds (left) and their paired control regions (green polygons) in one of the scene stimuli. The corresponding saliency and edge-content information are illustrated in (b) and (c).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Fixation probability (a) and minimum fixation distance (b) of unconstrained texts in front of homogeneous (H) and inhomogeneous (INH) background, and the corresponding values for non-text objects and control regions.
Figure 7
Figure 7
An example of the four stimulus versions of stimuli used in Experiment 4, with words and drawings on homogeneous background. (A) Word of Item A (sled) vs. drawing of Item B, (b) word of Item B (yoyo) vs. drawing of Item A, (c) scrambled word of Item A (dsle) vs. drawing of Item B, and (d) scrambled word of Item B (yyoo) vs. drawing of Item A.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Results of Experiment 4 for texts and drawings. (a) Fixation probability, (b) minimum fixation distance, and (c) first acquisition time (RT: regular text, ST: scrambled text, HB: homogeneous background, and IB: inhomogeneous background).
Figure 9
Figure 9
Example of upside-down and Chinese texts used in Experiment 5. (a) Version C1, in which half of the original texts were rotated and the other half was replaced with Chinese texts. (b) Version C2, in which the upside-down texts in C1 were replaced with Chinese texts, and the Chinese texts in C1 were replaced with upside-down texts.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Fixation probability and minimum fixation distance of Chinese and upside-down English texts for (a) English readers and (b) Chinese readers.
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