Impact of image appeal on visual attention during photo triaging

Image appeal is determined by factors such as exposure, white balance, motion blur, scene perspective, and semantics. All these factors influence the selection of the best image(s) in a typical photo triaging task. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study on how image appeal affected selection behavior and visual attention patterns of 11 users, who were assigned the task of selecting the best photo from each of 40 groups. Images with low appeal were rejected, while highly appealing images were selected by a majority. Images with higher appeal attracted more visual attention, and users spent more time exploring them. A comparison of user eye fixation maps with three state-of-the-art saliency models revealed that these differences are not captured by the models.