A model of modes of attention and inattention for artificial perception

This paper considers several aspects of natural visual attention and its link to wider notions of awareness, natural and artificial, in the context of foveated vision. It builds on a theory of abductive perception; a formal definition for an artificial or robot perceptual system, using objects represented as feature clouds. It proposes a broad, but unifying approach to several aspects of visual attention in the light of this, including autonomic eye gaze movements, aspects of secondary and covert attention, and exogenous (sense driven) and endogenous (task driven) attention. Modes of attentional lapse, commonly referred to as inattentional blindness and change blindness, are also discussed in the context of the model presented.