We investigated gaze-contingent fusion of infrared imagery during visual search. Eye movements were monitored while subjects searched for and identified human targets in images captured simultaneously in the short-wave (SWIR) and long-wave (LWIR) infrared bands. Based on the subject's gaze position, the search display was updated such that imagery from one sensor was continuously presented to the subject's central visual field ("center") and another sensor was presented to the subject's non-central visual field ("surround"). Analysis of performance data indicated that, compared to the other combinations, the scheme featuring SWIR imagery in the center region and LWIR imagery in the surround region constituted an optimal combination of the SWIR and LWIR information: it inherited the superior target detection performance of LWIR imagery and the superior target identification performance of SWIR imagery. This demonstrates a novel method for efficiently combining imagery from two infrared sources as an alternative to conventional image fusion. © 2017 Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada.
Mackenzie G. Glaholt, Grace Sim, "Gaze-Contingent Center-Surround Fusion of Infrared Images to Facilitate Visual Search for Human Targets" in Proc. IS&T Int’l. Symp. on Electronic Imaging: Human Vision and Electronic Imaging, 2017, pp 230 - 235, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2470-1173.2017.14.HVEI-149