Effects of Surround Stimulus on Metameric Color Matching

Abstract

It is well known that the color matches accomplished visually between different media do not always provide the same tristimulus values measured with a colorimeter. There are several hypotheses to explain these phenomena, such as individual differences in color matching functions (CMFs) and the limitation of applying the CMFs. In this research, we constructed an apparatus that can change its surrounding condition and conducted both metameric color matching experiments and isomeric color matching experiments with the same apparatus in order to clarify the influences of the surrounding stimulus. As the CMFs were obtained in the dark surrounding, the surrounding stimulus might have some effects on metameric color matching.

We found that there were variations in each setting, whose deviations differed depending on the color and on the surrounding conditions. However, the mean values of the matches were almost identical regardless of the surrounding condition.