CNN-based search model underestimates attention guidance by simple visual features

Recently, Zhang et al. (2018) proposed an interesting model of attention guidance that uses visual features learnt by convolutional neural networks for object recognition. I adapted this model for search experiments with accuracy as the measure of performance. Simulation of our previously published feature and conjunction search experiments revealed that CNN-based search model considerably underestimates human attention guidance by simple visual features. A simple explanation is that the model has no bottom-up guidance of attention. Another view might be that standard CNNs do not learn features required for human-like attention guidance.