The Hierarchy of Visual Attention in Natural Scenes

Hierarchical visual attention refers to the global and local visual pathways that process information that gets integrated to support where one places their attention visually. These Pathways have been found to integrate slower than is typical causing overwhelm and misinformation. This chapter explores this hidden dimension of vision by discussing eye movements, technologies that employ eye trackers to study eye movements, and technology that projects the filter images. By low level characteristics of the image–specifically the low level sensory processing that is manipulated is special frequency and luminance. This is done to alleviate some of the processing burden of the global and local integration disturbance, also known as local interference. Discussion of local interference in other neurodivergent conditions is also discussed specifically in ADHD and dyslexia. Design implications around filtering out distraction visually are provided.