title: Preference for Well-Balanced Saliency in Details Cropped from Photographs.
abstract: Photographic cropping is the act of selecting part of a photograph to enhance its aesthetic appearance or visual impact. It is common practice with both professional (expert) and amateur (non-expert) photographers. In a psychometric study, McManus et al. (2011b) showed that participants cropped photographs confidently and reliably. Experts tended to select details from a wider range of positions than non-experts, but other croppers did not generally prefer details that were selected by experts. It remained unclear, however, on what grounds participants selected particular details from a photograph while avoiding other details. One of the factors contributing to cropping decision may be visual saliency. Indeed, various saliency-based computer algorithms are available for the automatic cropping of photographs. However, careful experimental studies on the relation between saliency and cropping are lacking to date. In the present study, we re-analyzed the data from the studies by McManus et al. (2011a,b), focusing on statistical image properties. We calculated saliency-based measures for details selected and details avoided during cropping. As expected, we found that selected details contain regions of higher saliency than avoided details on average. Moreover, the saliency center-of-mass was closer to the geometrical center in selected details than in avoided details. Results were confirmed in an eye tracking study with the same dataset of images. Interestingly, the observed regularities in cropping behavior were less pronounced for experts than for non-experts. In summary, our results suggest that, during cropping, participants tend to select salient regions and place them in an image composition that is well-balanced with respect to the distribution of saliency. Our study contributes to the knowledge of perceptual bottom-up features that are germane to aesthetic decisions in photography and their variability in non-experts and experts.
authors.affiliation: Experimental Aesthetics Group, Institute of Anatomy I, University of Jena School of Medicine, Jena University Hospital Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Abeln
authors.affiliation: Experimental Aesthetics Group, Institute of Anatomy I, University of Jena School of Medicine, Jena University Hospital Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Leonie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fresz
authors.affiliation: Experimental Aesthetics Group, Institute of Anatomy I, University of Jena School of Medicine, Jena University HospitalJena, Germany; Computer Vision Group, Institute of Computer Science, Friedrich Schiller UniversityJena, Germany.
authors.forename: Seyed Ali
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Amirshahi
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London London, UK.
authors.forename: I Chris
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: McManus
authors.affiliation: Experimental Aesthetics Group, Institute of Anatomy I, University of Jena School of Medicine, Jena University HospitalJena, Germany; Computer Vision Group, Institute of Computer Science, Friedrich Schiller UniversityJena, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.affiliation: General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Helene
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kreysa
authors.affiliation: Experimental Aesthetics Group, Institute of Anatomy I, University of Jena School of Medicine, Jena University Hospital Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Redies
keywords: bottom-up processing; experimental aesthetics; eye movements; photography; statistical image properties; visual balance; visual saliency