Patent ID: 8364311

Claim:
A vision-based attention system, comprising: at least one vision sensor; at least one image processing module processing an output signal of the vision sensor in order to generate at least two two-dimensional feature maps f; a dorsal attention subsystem generating a first saliency map s dorsal on the basis of a combination of the at least two feature maps f and an expected object category c expected , wherein the expected category c expected of the object defines features of the object making objects of the expected category c expected highly salient in the first saliency map s dorsal taking into account a spatial prior, the saliency map s dorsal indicating a focus of attention p FoA for a driver assistance system; a classification subsystem computing an estimated category c perceived of an object category C for an object corresponding to a visual appearance of a local image patch R pFoA ; an expectation generation subsystem generating an object category c expected from the estimated category c perceived and propagating the expected object category c expected to the dorsal attention subsystem to influence the way the feature maps f are combined to said first saliency map s dorsal ; and a ventral subsystem, independent from the dorsal attention subsystem, generating a second saliency map s ventral on the basis of the at least two feature maps, which are the same or different as the ones used for the dorsal attention subsystem, the second saliency map s ventral indicating a visual stimulus independent from the expected object category c expected , wherein the ventral attention sub-system detects whether the visual stimulus contradicts the expected object category c expected , generating an interrupt event for the dorsal attention subsystem thereby enabling the system to reorient the focus of attention to the unexpected visual stimulus by providing a coarse spatial prior p unexpected to the dorsal attention subsystem.