Color constancy supports cross-illumination color selection

Area of Science:

• Visual perception
• Color science
• Cognitive psychology

Background:

• Color is vital for object selection in daily tasks.
• Accurate color perception across different lighting conditions (color constancy) is essential but not fully understood in the context of object selection.
• Previous research on color constancy often uses simplified stimuli, potentially not reflecting real-world scenarios.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how color constancy supports object selection in realistic tasks.
• To quantify color constancy using a novel selection-based paradigm.
• To compare selection-based color constancy with traditional methods.

Main Methods:

• Developed a novel task where participants selected objects based on color similarity under different illuminations.
• Utilized a variant of maximum likelihood difference scaling to infer selection-based color matches.
• Compared results from naturalistic stimuli versus simplified stimuli.
• Compared selection-based constancy with data from a classic asymmetric matching task.

Main Results:

• Color constancy measured through object selection was effective with naturalistic stimuli.
• Constancy was significantly reduced when using simplified stimuli.
• Selection-based matches correlated well with adjustment-based matches from traditional tasks.

Conclusions:

• Naturalistic stimulus context is critical for effective color constancy in object selection.
• Color perception supports accurate object selection across illumination changes when stimuli and tasks mimic real-life use.
• Existing appearance literature provides valuable insights for studying color constancy in naturalistic tasks.