An intuitive model of perceptual grouping for HCI design
04 Apr 2009-pp 1331-1340
TL;DR: This paper discusses a simple model for a broad range of perceptual grouping phenomena, and demonstrates that this model can capture aspects of traditional design rules, and predicts visual percepts in classic perceptual grouping displays.
Abstract: Understanding and exploiting the abilities of the human visual system is an important part of the design of usable user interfaces and information visualizations. Good design enables quick, easy and veridical perception of key components of that design. An important facet of human vision is its ability to seemingly effortlessly perform "perceptual organization; it transforms individual feature estimates into perception of coherent regions, structures, and objects. We perceive regions grouped by proximity and feature similarity, grouping of curves by good continuation, and grouping of regions of coherent texture. In this paper, we discuss a simple model for a broad range of perceptual grouping phenomena. It takes as input an arbitrary image, and returns a structure describing the predicted visual organization of the image. We demonstrate that this model can capture aspects of traditional design rules, and predicts visual percepts in classic perceptual grouping displays.
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TL;DR: A probabilistic model of change detection is presented that attempts to bridge the gap by formalizing the role of perceptual organization and allowing for richer, more structured memory representations.
Abstract: When remembering a real-world scene, people encode both detailed information about specific objects and higher order information like the overall gist of the scene. However, formal models of change detection, like those used to estimate visual working memory capacity, assume observers encode only a simple memory representation that includes no higher order structure and treats items independently from one another. We present a probabilistic model of change detection that attempts to bridge this gap by formalizing the role of perceptual organization and allowing for richer, more structured memory representations. Using either standard visual working memory displays or displays in which the items are purposefully arranged in patterns, we find that models that take into account perceptual grouping between items and the encoding of higher order summary information are necessary to account for human change detection performance. Considering the higher order structure of items in visual working memory will be critical for models to make useful predictions about observers' memory capacity and change detection abilities in simple displays as well as in more natural scenes.
174 citations
TL;DR: An approach for automatically creating graphic design layouts using a new energy-based model derived from design principles that includes several new algorithms for analyzing graphic designs, including the prediction of perceived importance, alignment detection, and hierarchical segmentation is presented.
Abstract: This paper presents an approach for automatically creating graphic design layouts using a new energy-based model derived from design principles. The model includes several new algorithms for analyzing graphic designs, including the prediction of perceived importance, alignment detection, and hierarchical segmentation. Given the model, we use optimization to synthesize new layouts for a variety of single-page graphic designs. Model parameters are learned with Nonlinear Inverse Optimization (NIO) from a small number of example layouts. To demonstrate our approach, we show results for applications including generating design layouts in various styles, retargeting designs to new sizes, and improving existing designs. We also compare our automatic results with designs created using crowdsourcing and show that our approach performs slightly better than novice designers.
152 citations
Additional excerpts
...Index Terms—Graphic design, layout, modeling, learning, crowdsourcing, nonlinear inverse optimization Ç...
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15 Feb 2014
TL;DR: Voyant, a novel system giving users access to a non-expert crowd to receive perception-oriented feedback on their designs from a selected audience, generates the elements seen in a design, the order in which elements are noticed, impressions formed when the design is first viewed.
Abstract: Feedback on designs is critical for helping users iterate toward effective solutions. This paper presents Voyant, a novel system giving users access to a non-expert crowd to receive perception-oriented feedback on their designs from a selected audience. Based on a formative study, the system generates the elements seen in a design, the order in which elements are noticed, impressions formed when the design is first viewed, and interpretation of the design relative to guidelines in the domain and the user's stated goals. An evaluation of the system was conducted with users and their designs. Users reported the feedback about impressions and interpretation of their goals was most helpful, though the other feedback types were also valued. Users found the coordinated views in Voyant useful for analyzing relations between the crowd's perception of a design and the visual elements within it. The cost of generating the feedback was considered a reasonable tradeoff for not having to organize critiques or interrupt peers.
147 citations
Cites background from "An intuitive model of perceptual gr..."
...A second approach is to build computational models to predict aesthetics and affect [39], complexity and colorfulness [27], or perceptual groupings [28] using the visual features of a design....
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Patent•
31 May 2013TL;DR: In this paper, a method for placing an overlay in video content is presented, based on overlay and video properties, where the overlay can be placed in the selected location and rendered the video with the inserted overlay.
Abstract: Methods and systems for placing an overlay in video content are provided. A method receives video content and input indicating an overlay to be placed in the video. The method determines, based on overlay and video properties, locations where the overlay can be placed. The method presents suggested locations for the overlay and receives a selection of a suggested location. The overlay is placed in the selected location. A system includes memory with instructions for inserting an overlay into video content. The system receives an indication of an overlay to be placed in the video, performs attention modeling on the video to identify zones likely to be of interest to a viewer. The system presents locations within the identified zones where the overlay can be inserted and receives a selection of a location. The system inserts the overlay into the selected location and renders the video with the inserted overlay.
142 citations
TL;DR: The results show that the severe capacity limits of attention strongly modulate the effectiveness of information visualizations, particularly the ability to detect unexpected information.
Abstract: In this paper, we explore how the capacity limits of attention influence the effectiveness of information visualizations. We conducted a series of experiments to test how visual feature type (color vs. motion), layout, and variety of visual elements impacted user performance. The experiments tested users' abilities to (1) determine if a specified target is on the screen, (2) detect an odd-ball, deviant target, different from the other visible objects, and (3) gain a qualitative overview by judging the number of unique categories on the screen. Our results show that the severe capacity limits of attention strongly modulate the effectiveness of information visualizations, particularly the ability to detect unexpected information. Keeping in mind these capacity limits, we conclude with a set of design guidelines which depend on a visualization's intended use.
101 citations
Cites methods from "An intuitive model of perceptual gr..."
...In the context of HCI and visualization, the spatial and sizing consequences of grouping have been proposed as models for design and evaluation [14], [15]....
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References
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TL;DR: The analogy between images and statistical mechanics systems is made and the analogous operation under the posterior distribution yields the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of the image given the degraded observations, creating a highly parallel ``relaxation'' algorithm for MAP estimation.
Abstract: We make an analogy between images and statistical mechanics systems. Pixel gray levels and the presence and orientation of edges are viewed as states of atoms or molecules in a lattice-like physical system. The assignment of an energy function in the physical system determines its Gibbs distribution. Because of the Gibbs distribution, Markov random field (MRF) equivalence, this assignment also determines an MRF image model. The energy function is a more convenient and natural mechanism for embodying picture attributes than are the local characteristics of the MRF. For a range of degradation mechanisms, including blurring, nonlinear deformations, and multiplicative or additive noise, the posterior distribution is an MRF with a structure akin to the image model. By the analogy, the posterior distribution defines another (imaginary) physical system. Gradual temperature reduction in the physical system isolates low energy states (``annealing''), or what is the same thing, the most probable states under the Gibbs distribution. The analogous operation under the posterior distribution yields the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of the image given the degraded observations. The result is a highly parallel ``relaxation'' algorithm for MAP estimation. We establish convergence properties of the algorithm and we experiment with some simple pictures, for which good restorations are obtained at low signal-to-noise ratios.
18,761 citations
TL;DR: This work treats image segmentation as a graph partitioning problem and proposes a novel global criterion, the normalized cut, for segmenting the graph, which measures both the total dissimilarity between the different groups as well as the total similarity within the groups.
Abstract: We propose a novel approach for solving the perceptual grouping problem in vision. Rather than focusing on local features and their consistencies in the image data, our approach aims at extracting the global impression of an image. We treat image segmentation as a graph partitioning problem and propose a novel global criterion, the normalized cut, for segmenting the graph. The normalized cut criterion measures both the total dissimilarity between the different groups as well as the total similarity within the groups. We show that an efficient computational technique based on a generalized eigenvalue problem can be used to optimize this criterion. We applied this approach to segmenting static images, as well as motion sequences, and found the results to be very encouraging.
13,789 citations
TL;DR: A new definition of scale-space is suggested, and a class of algorithms used to realize a diffusion process is introduced, chosen to vary spatially in such a way as to encourage intra Region smoothing rather than interregion smoothing.
Abstract: A new definition of scale-space is suggested, and a class of algorithms used to realize a diffusion process is introduced. The diffusion coefficient is chosen to vary spatially in such a way as to encourage intraregion smoothing rather than interregion smoothing. It is shown that the 'no new maxima should be generated at coarse scales' property of conventional scale space is preserved. As the region boundaries in the approach remain sharp, a high-quality edge detector which successfully exploits global information is obtained. Experimental results are shown on a number of images. Parallel hardware implementations are made feasible because the algorithm involves elementary, local operations replicated over the image. >
12,560 citations
TL;DR: It is proved the convergence of a recursive mean shift procedure to the nearest stationary point of the underlying density function and, thus, its utility in detecting the modes of the density.
Abstract: A general non-parametric technique is proposed for the analysis of a complex multimodal feature space and to delineate arbitrarily shaped clusters in it. The basic computational module of the technique is an old pattern recognition procedure: the mean shift. For discrete data, we prove the convergence of a recursive mean shift procedure to the nearest stationary point of the underlying density function and, thus, its utility in detecting the modes of the density. The relation of the mean shift procedure to the Nadaraya-Watson estimator from kernel regression and the robust M-estimators; of location is also established. Algorithms for two low-level vision tasks discontinuity-preserving smoothing and image segmentation - are described as applications. In these algorithms, the only user-set parameter is the resolution of the analysis, and either gray-level or color images are accepted as input. Extensive experimental results illustrate their excellent performance.
11,727 citations