Understanding cognitive saliency by using an online game

One of the most known definitions of saliency suggests that there are three categories for landmark saliency, these being visual, structural and cognitive [1]. A large number of studies have focused on the afore-mentioned categories; however, there appear to be fewer studies on cognitive saliency than on the other topics. Hence, in this study, our goal is to better understand cognitive saliency. For this purpose, we used an online virtual game, Sea Hero Quest (SHQ), and asked people to watch videos of the game. In the videos, a boat navigated in canal/river environments and found goal locations one by one. People then were asked to answer questions, which aimed to measure their cognitive saliency. Our results suggest that cognitive saliency is closely related to visual saliency in unfamiliar environments