Luminance Limit for Surface-Color Mode Perception

Abstract

The mode of color appearance gradually changes from surface-color mode to aperture-color mode as the intensity of the stimulus increases. We measured the upper-limit of luminance for the surface-color mode to find the determinants of mode perception. A subject adjusted the luminance of a test stimulus located at the center of surrounding stimuli so that it just started to appear as the aperture-color. The surrounding stimuli consisted of eight color chips and a white frame on a gray background, and they were either made using Munsell papers or presented on a CRT monitor. The results indicated that the upper-limit luminances was different in all the test colors. We also measured the brightness-luminance ratio (B/L) for each test color. The products of upper-limit luminance and B/L were almost equal for all test colors. A comparison of upper-limit luminance of our data and that derived from the optimal color for each test color also indicated less chromatic dependence. These results suggest that both brightness and optimal color may determine the transition from surface-color to aperture-color mode perception.