New dimensions in color perception
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 26, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation
Published on: April 24, 2017
1Psychology Department, UCSD, 92093, La Jolla, CA, USA
Abstract:
Colors are generally ordered in three dimensions, with hue and saturation as polar coordinates of a color circle, and brightness as the third dimension. Intuitively, lines of constant hue (but variable saturation) in such a color space should converge on an achromatic point devoid of hue. However, in new experiments by Ekroll et al. using colored patches in colored surrounds, constant hue lines converge not on 'gray' but on the surround color. This paradoxical observation suggests that the standard three-dimensional conception of perceived color is inadequate.
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