Does where you Gaze on an Image Affect your Perception of Quality? Applying Visual Attention to Image Quality Metric

The aim of an objective image quality assessment is to find an automatic algorithm that evaluates the quality of pictures or video as a human observer would do. To reach this goal, researchers try to simulate the Human Visual System (HVS). Visual attention is a main feature of the HVS, but few studies have been done on using it in image quality assessment. In this work, we investigate the use of the visual attention information in their final pooling step. The rationale of this choice is that an artefact is likely more annoying in a salient region than in other areas. To shed light on this point, a quality assessment campaign has been conducted during which eye movements have been recorded. The results show that applying the visual attention to image quality assessment is not trivial, even with the ground truth.