Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Reaction:Attention and Visual Memory in visualization and computer graphics

All the papers till now have explained the benefits of visually displaying information and the different ways in which it can be represented. This paper deals with the actual science of visual memory and attention explaining how our visual memory reacts to different images.

I have seen this paper a couple of times. In fact Dr, Healey himself showed this paper in class when I took computer graphics under him last semester. The paper begins with the concept of preattentive processing. Various examples are given to prove how it becomes difficult for our visual system to spot the red spots when surrounded by red squares and blue circles. Then the paper deals with some theories of preattentive vision. The part that deals with changed blindness and inattentional blindness was eye catching. It was so very difficult to spot the difference between the two images when they were flickering. Unless your eyes are at the exact spot of difference, you wouldn’t be able to see any difference between the two images.

I think to be in the field of visualization it is very important to know the science and various theories behind the visual system, how are visual system reacts to different surroundings, how long is the attention span and why the system fails to distinguish between objects when surrounded by similar hue and shaped objects.

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