Inspired by the theory of two visual pathways

a novel model for object detection is proposed based on "what" and "where" information.Context-centered "where" information is used to control top-down attention

and guide bottom-up attention which is driven by "what" information.The procedure of top-down attention can be divided into two stages:pre-attention and focus attention.In the stage of pre-attention

"where" information can be used to provide the prior knowledge of presence or absence of objects which decides whether search operation is followed.By integrating the result of focus attention with "what" information

attention is directed to the region that is most likely to contain the object and series of salient regions for samples are detected.Experimental results with natural images demonstrate its effectiveness.