title: Designing pictorial stimuli for perceptual experiments.
abstract: The effects of design decisions in the development of systems that generate images for human consumption, such as cameras and displays, are often evaluated using real-world images. However, human observers can react differently to complex pictorial stimuli over the course of a lengthy experiment. This study was conducted to develop understanding of the optimal design of pictorial stimuli for effective and efficient perceptual experiments. The goals were to understand the impact of image content on visual attention and consistency of experimental results and apply this understanding to develop guidelines for pictorial target design for perceptual image comparison experiments. The efficacy of the proposed guidelines was evaluated. While the fixation consistency results were generally as expected, fixation consistency did not always equate to experimental response consistency. Along with scene complexity, the image modifications and the difficulty of the image equivalency decisions played a role in the experimental response.
authors.forename: Susan P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Farnand
authors.forename: Mark D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Fairchild