The intent of this study is to determine what sorts of images are considered more interesting by which demographic
groups. Specifically, we attempt to identify images whose interestingness ratings are influenced by the demographic
attribute of the viewer’s gender. To that end, we use the data from an experiment where 18 participants (9 women and 9
men) rated several hundred images based on “visual interest” or preferences in viewing images. The images were
selected to represent the consumer “photo-space” - typical categories of subject matter found in consumer photo
collections. They were annotated using perceptual and semantic descriptors.
In analyzing the image interestingness ratings, we apply a multivariate procedure known as forced classification, a
feature of dual scaling, a discrete analogue of principal components analysis (similar to correspondence analysis). This
particular analysis of ratings (i.e., ordered-choice or Likert) data enables the investigator to emphasize the effect of a
specific item or collection of items. We focus on the influence of the demographic item of gender on the analysis, so
that the solutions are essentially confined to subspaces spanned by the emphasized item. Using this technique, we can
know definitively which images’ ratings have been influenced by the demographic item of choice. Subsequently,
images can be evaluated and linked, on one hand, to their perceptual and semantic descriptors, and, on the other hand, to
the preferences associated with viewers’ demographic attributes.
From the advent of digital imaging through several decades of studies, the human vision research community systematically focused on perceived image quality and digital artifacts due to resolution, compression, gamma, dynamic range, capture and reproduction noise, blur, etc., to help overcome existing technological challenges and shortcomings. Technological advances made digital images and digital multimedia nearly flawless in quality, and ubiquitous and pervasive in usage, provide us with the exciting but at the same time demanding possibility to turn to the domain of human experience including higher psychological functions, such as cognition, emotion, awareness, social interaction, consciousness and Self. In this paper we will outline the evolution of human centered multidisciplinary studies related to imaging and propose steps and potential foci of future research.
We present an exploration of familiarity as a meaningful dimension for the individualized adaptation of media-rich
interfaces. In this paper, we investigate in particular the effect of digital images personalized for familiarity on users’
perceived interestingness. Two dimensions of familiarity, facial familiarity and familiarity with image context, are
manipulated. Our investigation consisted of three studies: the first two address how morphing technology can be used to
convey meaningful familiarity, and the third studies the effect of such familiarity on users’ sense of interestingness. Four
levels of person familiarity varying in degree of person knowledge, and two levels of context familiarity varying in
frequency of exposure, were considered: Self, Friend, Celebrity, and Stranger in Familiar and Unfamiliar contexts.
Experimental results showed significant main effects of context and person familiarity. Our findings deepen
understanding of the critical element of familiarity in HCI and its relationship to the interestingness of images, and can
have great impact for the design of media-rich systems.
Past research has demonstrated the complexity of perceived contrast as an attribute of natural images. This attribute is affected by the tone reproduction characteristics in an imaging system, the observer's viewing environment, and the scene itself. Development of digital photography with new tools to affect tone reproduction prompts the necessity for further insights into parameters that influence the perception of contrast to computationally predict and optimize this attribute for a large variety of individual images. To elucidate the relationship between perceived overall contrast and image properties, we performed a series of experiments where observers estimated perceived overall contrast, defined as an integrated impression of difference in lightness, for images of natural scenes presented on a monitor screen. The ratings were used to develop a computational prediction based on assessment of features, which hypothetically could be used by the subjects' visual system when evaluating perceived overall contrast.
In a series of experiments, observers' cognitive and psychophysiological responses to pictorial stimuli were evaluated. In the first experiment, subjects were viewing a set of randomly presented images. After each image presentation, they rates every image on a number of cognitive scales. In the second experiment, images producing certain physiological effects - deactivating, neutral, or activating - were individually selected based on the results of the first experiment and shown to the subjects again. Psychophysiological measurements included electrocardiogram, hand temperature, muscle tension, eye movements, blood oxygen, respiration, and galvanic skin response. Our result indicate that images produced significant emotional changes based on verbal and physiological assessment. The changes were in agreement with the predictions derived from the metric that we developed in a number of cases that exceeded the change level. The direction of changes corresponded to previous findings reported elsewhere.
The relation between perceptual image quality and naturalness was investigated by varying the colorfulness and hue of color images of natural scenes. These variations were created by digitizing the images, subsequently determining their color point distributions in the CIELUV color space and finally multiplying either the chroma value of the hue angle of each pixel by a constant. During the chroma/hue-angle transformation the lightness and hue-angle/chroma value of each pixel were kept constant. Ten subjects rated quality and naturalness on numerical scales. The results show that both quality and naturalness deteriorate as soon as hues start to deviate from the ones in the original image. Chroma variation affected the impression of quality and naturalness to a lesser extent than did hue variation. In general, a linear relation was found between image quality and naturalness. For chroma variation, however, a small but systematic deviation could be observed. This deviation reflects the subjects' preference for more colorful but, at the same time, somewhat unnatural images.
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