Reaction: Attention and Visual Memory in Visualization and Computer Graphics

The paper focuses on understanding the role attention and visual perception in data visualization and visual analytics. The preattentive processing of the image is where we analyze the image initially and scan for regions and pay attention to some detail. The various theories outlined in the paper try to explain how visualizations are perceived and where more attention is concentrated. The similarity theory is more applicable where we can identify a feature from various other distractions. But, the guided search theory takes into consideration all the features identified by the other theories and produces a better result on where the attention is more focused. The reader's view that eye gaze and perception are different tells a lot of things about what people are seeing and what actually are they perceiving.

The use of good visual models based on the need of visualization is important to grab viewer's attention. A visualization should be such that it draws attention from the user and increases the perception of the quantity and quality of the image by the user. Factors like the acuity that a user can perceive, amount of visual data if represented properly can be understood and the avoidance of change blindness are required. The paper underlines the various factors to be considered to improve visual perception of a visualization and give the correct idea to the viewer.