Colour Notation and Psychological Elementary Colours

Abstract

Psychological elementary colours in achromatic and chromatic stimuli were measured by the method of magnitude estimation under 1000lx D65 simulator illumination with an N6 gray background after 5 minutes adaptation. In experiment 1,sum of Blackness and Whiteness are less than 100 at every achromatic stimuli, however it ought to be equal to 100. The result suggests some of psychological elementary colours are suppressed in order to perceive alternative elementary colour clearly. In experiment 2,the amounts of six psychological elementary colours in viewing chromatic colours were measured by the magnitude estimation method in order to examine if it is possible to judge not ratios but the absolute amounts of elementary colours. Observing 211 chromatic colour papers, subjects estimated all the psychological elementary colours in the stimuli, in comparison with psychological elementary colours. The results showed that some chromatic elementary colours of stimuli increased linearly with Blackness and Whiteness, and that the sums of elementary colours included in each stimulus increased with the maximum value of Whiteness, Blackness and Chromationess. These results suggest that one elementary colour induces some others in chromatic colour percepts and that being perceived very strong, an elementary colour induced other one, and it makes the perception unstable.