# The perceptual boost of visual attention is task-dependent in naturalistic settings

Source: [The perceptual boost of visual attention is task-dependent in naturalistic settings](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa67581e209131cea15b40>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-25T22:12:13.696Z

Authors: Freddie Bickford Smith, Xiaoliang Luo, Brett D. Roads, Bradley C. Love

Published: 2020-02-22T09:10:24.000Z

## Abstract

Top-down attention allows people to focus on task-relevant visual information. Is the resulting perceptual boost task-dependent in naturalistic settings? We aim to answer this with a large-scale computational experiment. First, we design a collection of visual tasks, each consisting of classifying images from a chosen task set (subset of ImageNet categories). The nature of a task is determined by which categories are included in the task set. Second, on each task we train an attention-augmented neural network and then compare its accuracy to that of a baseline network. We show that the perceptual boost of attention is stronger with increasing task-set difficulty, weaker with increasing task-set size and weaker with increasing perceptual similarity within a task set.

## Recorded benchmark results

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## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.00882>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.00882.pdf>)