SideEye: A Generative Neural Network Based Simulator of Human Peripheral Vision

Foveal vision makes up less than 1% of the visual field. The other 99% is peripheral vision. Precisely what human beings see in the periphery is both obvious and mysterious in that we see it with our own eyes but can't visualize what we see, except in controlled lab experiments. Degradation of information in the periphery is far more complex than what might be mimicked with a radial blur. Rather, behaviorally-validated models hypothesize that peripheral vision measures a large number of local texture statistics in pooling regions that overlap and grow with eccentricity. In this work, we develop a new method for peripheral vision simulation by training a generative neural network on a behaviorally-validated full-field synthesis model. By achieving a 21,000 fold reduction in running time, our approach is the first to combine realism and speed of peripheral vision simulation to a degree that provides a whole new way to approach visual design: through peripheral visualization.