Depth information affects judgment of the surface-color mode appearance

Area of Science:

• Visual perception
• Color science
• Computational neuroscience

Background:

• Color appearance is influenced by surrounding visual context.
• The coplanar ratio hypothesis posits that stimuli on the same plane are crucial for lightness judgments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how depth and luminance of surrounding stimuli affect surface-color mode perception in a 3D environment.
• To test the coplanar ratio hypothesis in a three-dimensional context.

Main Methods:

• Subjects identified the upper-limit luminance for a test stimulus to appear in the surface-color mode.
• Stimuli were presented in a 3D environment with varying depths and luminances.
• Surrounding stimuli composed of 10 different colors were used at different depths relative to the test stimulus.

Main Results:

• The upper-limit luminances of test colors changed based on the luminances of surrounding stimuli at the same depth.
• Perception of the surface-color mode was primarily influenced by stimuli within the same depth plane.
• This supports the importance of stimulus 'belongingness' to a specific environmental group.

Conclusions:

• Surface-color mode perception is determined by coplanar stimuli in 3D environments.
• The findings support the coplanar ratio hypothesis and the concept of stimulus belongingness.
• Visual context, particularly within the same depth plane, is critical for color appearance.