@Article{Supelec664,
author = {Jérémy Fix and Nicolas Rougier and Frédéric Alexandre},
title = {{A Dynamic Neural Field Approach to the Covert and Overt Deployment of Spatial Attention}},
journal = {Cognitive Computation},
year = {2010},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12559-010-9083-y},
doi = {10.1007/s12559-010-9083-y},
abstract = {The visual exploration of a scene involves the
interplay of several competing processes (for example to
select the next saccade or to keep fixation) and the integration
of bottom-up (e.g. contrast) and top-down information
(the target of a visual search task). Identifying the
neural mechanisms involved in these processes and in the
integration of these information remains a challenging
question. Visual attention refers to all these processes, both
when the eyes remain fixed (covert attention) and when
they are moving (overt attention). Popular computational
models of visual attention consider that the visual information
remains fixed when attention is deployed while the
primates are executing around three saccadic eye movements
per second, changing abruptly this information. We
present in this paper a model relying on neural fields, a
paradigm for distributed, asynchronous and numerical
computations and show that covert and overt attention can
emerge from such a substratum. We identify and propose a
possible interaction of four elementary mechanisms for
selecting the next locus of attention, memorizing the previously
attended locations, anticipating the consequences
of eye movements and integrating bottom-up and top-down
information in order to perform a visual search task with
saccadic eye movements.}
}