Patent ID: 7562056

Claim:
A method performed by a computer for learning an attention model for an image, the method comprising: receiving indications of actions of a user while viewing the image and indications of action focus areas of the image currently being viewed to which the actions relate; and generating by the computer the attention model based on the actions of the user, the attention model identifying attention objects of the image, an attention object corresponding to an area of the image in which the user has expressed interest based on the actions of the user while viewing the image, the attention objects being identified by dividing the image into images zones such that the image zones encompass the entire image, each image zone having an interest score indicating interest of the user in the image zone: for each indication of an action, for each image zone within the action focus area of the action, updating the interest score for the image zone based on the indicated action; identifying as initial attention objects those image zones with interest scores indicating the user expressed most interest in those image zones; expanding the initial attention objects by adding adjacent image zones with an interest score indicating a threshold interest in the adjacent image zones; and designating an expanded attention object as an attention object for the image.