Visual Saliency

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Overview

Visual saliency asks where people look and which regions are most important, supporting applications such as scene understanding, assistive vision, and safety. Methods range from biologically inspired contrast and motion models to deep networks that predict gaze maps, detect salient objects, or explain a model’s decisions; newer approaches condition attention on language, task goals, or scene semantics. Evaluation relies on eye-tracking and crowdsourced fixation benchmarks, object masks, and tests of whether highlighted regions faithfully explain model behavior. A central challenge is that attention varies with motion, goals, and individual or demographic differences, while many benchmarks and metrics still favor static scenes or central viewing bias.

Latest papers

CardsList

31 papers3 papers in the last four weeks, level with the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. EEGaze: Multimodal Attention Prediction in Visual Search via EEG-Based Saliency Refinement

    Oct 26, 2026Mansi Sharma, Dinar Orazgaliyev, Antonio Krüger +1Visual AttentionVisual Search

    Max-Planck-Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany · Saarland University and DFKI, Saarbrücken, Germany · Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

  2. AVAtt: A Free-Viewing Eye-Tracking Dataset and Benchmark for Visual Attention on Paintings

    Oct 21, 2026Mohamed Amine Kerkouri, Marouane Tliba, Aladine Chetouani +1Visual AttentionVisual Saliency

    F-Initiatives, France · University of Orléans, PRISME Laboratory, France · IULM University, Milan, Italy

  3. Semantic Saliency from Multi-Modal Large Language Model Scene Understanding Maps

    Oct 11, 2026Ziqi Wen, Shravan Murlidaran, Jonathan Skaza +2Visual SaliencyActive Visual Perception

    Department of Computer Science University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93117 · Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93117 · Graduate Program in Dynamical Neuroscience University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93117 +2

  4. Moving Forward with Video Saliency: A New Dataset and Benchmark where Motion Matters

    Oct 2, 2026Susmit Agrawal, Rebecca Wanner, Juliane Verwiebe +3Video Saliency PredictionVisual Saliency

    Tübingen AI Center, University of Tübingen · IMPRS-IS · Optocycle +2

  5. Amplify What You Gaze At: Target Saliency Boosting in Text-to-Image Generation

    Sep 25, 2026Shengqi Dang, Zhengxi Yu, Feilin Han +2T2I GenerationVisual Saliency

    Tongji University · Shanghai Innovation Institute · Fudan University

  6. OpenSAL360: Open-Source Crowdsourcing Platform for Omnidirectional Video Saliency Collection

    Sep 18, 2026Alexey Bryncev, Andrey Moskalenko, Kira Shilovskaya +2Visual SaliencyVideo Saliency Prediction

    AI Center, Lomonosov Moscow State University MSU Institute for Artificial Intelligence Moscow, Russia · AI Center, Lomonosov Moscow State University MSU Institute for Artificial Intelligence, FusionBrain Lab Moscow, Russia · Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow, Russia +1

  7. Dotting the Eye: An Intent-Driven Image Retouching Agent for Visual Focus Enhancement

    Sep 1, 2026Chujie Qin, Zilong Zhang, Zewei Chang +5Image EnhancementVisual Saliency

    VCIP,CS,Nankai University · NKIARI, Shenzhen Futian · DJI Technology Co., Ltd +1

  8. TRINITY: A Multi-Perspective Benchmark for Personal-Style Video Highlight Detection

    Aug 30, 2026Qianqian Chen, Hyun Bin Kim, Denzel Elden Wijaya +3Video Saliency PredictionVideo Summarization

    Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

  9. Focus Where It Counts: A Salience-Driven Vision-Language Model for Low Vision Assistance

    Aug 28, 2026Jiazhao Liang, Hao Huang, Shuaihang Yuan +8Assistive Technology for Blind and Low-Vision PeopleImage Captioning

    New York University Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA · NYUAD Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) and Embodied AI and Robotics (AIR) Lab, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi 129188, UAE · NYU Grossman School of Medicine, NYU Langone Health, New York, NY 10016, USA +1

  10. HiRA-CAM: Preserving Fine-Grained Spatial Relevance in Gradient-Based Visual Explanations

    Aug 19, 2026Manasi Nerurkar, Ali A. MinaiExplainable Image ClassificationGradient-Based Attribution

    Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, USA

  11. Human versus Computer Vision

    Aug 10, 2026Elena SirotkinaVisual AttentionAlgorithmic Fairness

    Center for Data Science, New York University

  12. Is It Time for the Renaissance of Salient Object Detection in the Era of MLLMs?

    Jul 31, 2026Wenzhuo Zhao, Xiuzhi Li, Zhongkuan Mao +6VLM EvaluationSalient Object Detection

    College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, China · National Key Laboratory of Fundamental Science on Synthetic Vision, Sichuan University, China · School of Information and Communication Engineering, University of ElectronicScience and Technology of China, China

  13. DensFiLM: Density-Conditioned Video Saliency for Crowd Scenes

    Jul 28, 2026Anis Ur RahmanSalient Object DetectionVideo Saliency Prediction

    CSC - IT Center for Science Ltd., Espoo, Finland

  14. FSDBN: Foreground-Aware EEG-Visual Alignment via Dynamic Brain Networks

    Jul 20, 2026Yiheng Liu, Chuhang Zheng, Peiliang Gong +3EEG-Based Visual DecodingCross-Modal Alignment

    College of Artificial Intelligence, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China · The International Joint Institute of Tianjin University, Fuzhou, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

  15. Attention-Guided Saliency Maps for Interpreting Visualization Literacy in VLMs

    Jul 17, 2026Maeve Hutchinson, Abderrahmane Wassim Mehdaoui, Pranava MadhyasthaData VisualizationVisual Attention

    City St George’s · City St George’s, University of London · The Alan Turing Institute

  16. TDSal: Task-Based Top-Down Saliency Prediction Model

    Jul 10, 2026Can Mizrakli, Tolga K. CapinVisual AttentionSalient Object Detection

    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany · TED University, Türkiye

  17. What Pixels Are Enough? SEAMS: Sufficiency Saliency via MSE-Preservation Soft-Masks

    Jul 10, 2026Magdalena Trędowicz, Łukasz Struski, Arkadiusz Lewicki +4Transformer InterpretabilitySaliency Map Evaluation

    Jagiellonian University · University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów · Jagiellonian University Medical College

  18. Comparing Human Gaze and Vision-Language Model Attention in Safety-Relevant Environments

    Jun 13, 2026Marta Vallejo, Siwen WangVLM EvaluationLarge Vision-Language Models

    School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, United Kingdom

  19. Attend to Anything: Foundation Model for Unified Human Attention Modeling

    Jun 2, 2026Wenzhuo Zhao, Ronghao Xian, Keren Fu +1Visual AttentionUnified Multimodal Models

    College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China · National Key Laboratory of Fundamental Science on Synthetic Vision, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

  20. ViASNet: A Video Ad Saliency Network for Predicting Dynamic Saliency and Viewer Engagement

    May 28, 2026Jianping Ye, Michel WedelVideo UnderstandingOnline Advertising

    Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA · Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  21. Bridging visual saliency and large language models for explainable deep learning in medical imaging

    May 7, 2026Paul Valery Nguezet, Elie Tagne Fute, Yusuf Brima +2Radiology Report GenerationMedical Image Classification

    Department of Mathematics and Computer science, University of Dschang, Dschang, 67, Cameroon. · Computer Vision, Institute of Cognitive Science, Osnabrück University, Osnabrueck, D-49090, Lower Saxony, Germany. · Department of Mathematics, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, 6140, Eastern Cape, South Africa. +1

  22. Raising the Ceiling: Better Empirical Fixation Densities for Saliency Benchmarking

    May 5, 2026Susmit Agrawal, Jannis Hollman, Matthias KümmererBenchmark DesignEye Tracking

    Tübingen AI Center, University of Tübingen, Germany

  23. SIMON: Saliency-aware Integrative Multi-view Object-centric Neural Decoding

    May 1, 2026YuSheng Lin, Ji-Hwa Tsai, Chun-Shu WeiEEG-Based Visual DecodingMulti-View Learning

    National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

  24. See Further, Think Deeper: Advancing VLM's Reasoning Ability with Low-level Visual Cues and Reflection

    Apr 27, 2026Zhiheng Wu, Tong Wang, Shuning Wang +2Tool Use in VLMsVLM Reasoning

    1Baidu Inc. · †Independent researcher. · 2Zhejiang University +1

  25. NTIRE 2026 Challenge on Video Saliency Prediction: Methods and Results

    Apr 16, 2026Andrey Moskalenko, Alexey Bryncev, Ivan Kosmynin +40Video Saliency PredictionVisual Saliency

  26. BIAS: A Biologically Inspired Algorithm for Video Saliency Detection

    Apr 10, 2026Zhao-ji Zhang, Ya-tang LiVideo Saliency PredictionVisual Saliency

    Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China · Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing (CIBR), Beijing 102206, China

  27. ViSAGE @ NTIRE 2026 Challenge on Video Saliency Prediction

    Apr 9, 2026Kun Wang, Yupeng Hu, Zhiran Li +3Video Saliency PredictionVisual Saliency

    Shandong University · Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen) · City University of Hong Kong +1

  28. Determined by User Needs: A Salient Object Detection Rationale Beyond Conventional Visual Stimuli

    Apr 4, 2026Chenglizhao Chen, Shujian Zhang, Luming Li +2Salient Object DetectionVisual Saliency

    China University of Petroleum (East China) · Beijing Information Science and Technology University · Beihang University

  29. DiffAttn: Diffusion-Based Drivers' Visual Attention Prediction with LLM-Enhanced Semantic Reasoning

    Mar 30, 2026Weimin Liu, Qingkun Li, Jiyuan Qiu +2Visual AttentionAutonomous Driving Perception

    School of vehicle and Mobility, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China · Beijing Key Laboratory of Human-Computer Interaction, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China · Remote Sensing and Earth Observation Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen K, Denmark +1

  30. VISER: Visually-Informed System for Enhanced Robustness in Iris Presentation Attack Detection

    Mar 18, 2026Byron Dowling, Jacob Piland, Eleanor Frederick +2Visual Saliency

    †Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA · ‡Center for Research Computing, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA