Visual fixation patterns in subjective quality assessment: The relative impact of image content and structural distortions

The viewing behaviour of human observers during image quality assessment is analysed. In this respect, the relative impact of image content and structural distortions is of particular interest. Two subjective experiments were conducted as a basis for analysis; a region-of-interest (ROI) experiment and an eye tracking experiment under quality assessment task. A correlation analysis and a receiver operating characteristics analysis reveal, that quality assessment takes place mainly within the ROI, indicating a higher impact of the content as compared to the distortions. This seems to be only contradicted by very strong and localised distortions outside the ROI.