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Perceived area and the luminosity threshold.

F Bonato¹, A L Gilchrist

¹Department of Psychology, Saint Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ 07306, USA. bonato_f@spcvxa.spc.edu

Perception & Psychophysics

|September 28, 1999

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Target size influences when objects appear luminous. Larger perceived target sizes require higher luminance thresholds before they seem self-luminous, behaving like surface lightness.

Area of Science:

Visual perception
Psychophysics
Color science

Background:

Understanding the perception of luminosity and surface lightness is crucial in visual science.
Previous research has explored factors influencing perceived luminosity, but the interplay with perceived size and anchoring effects requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how target size, specifically perceived size, affects the luminance threshold at which a target appears self-luminous.
To examine the relationship between luminosity perception and surface lightness under various viewing conditions.
To test the hypothesis that luminosity thresholds follow similar anchoring principles as surface lightness.

Main Methods:

Participants made forced-choice judgments on the perceived luminosity of targets with varying luminance and perceived size.

Related Experiment Videos

Experiments were conducted in controlled laboratory settings, including presentations on a wall, within an annulus, and embedded in a Mondrian array.

Lightness matches were performed for nearby opaque surfaces to compare with luminosity thresholds.

Main Results:

The luminance threshold for perceiving a target as self-luminous increased with its perceived size, not retinal size.
Larger targets showed a greater tendency to induce grayness/blackness in the surround with increased luminance, while smaller targets induced more luminosity.
A consistent invariant was observed: targets appeared luminous when their luminance was approximately 1.7 times that of a surface appearing white under the same illumination.

Conclusions:

The luminosity threshold functions analogously to a surface lightness value, specifically the maximum lightness.
Luminosity perception is subject to the same anchoring laws, such as the area rule, that govern surface lightness.
Perceived size is a critical factor in determining the luminance required for an object to appear self-luminous.