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Perception of a Black Room Seen Through a Veiling Luminance
Alan Gilchrist1, Michael S Langer2
1Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, United States.
I-Perception
|December 7, 2020
Summary
Viewing a black room through a veiling luminance makes it appear white. This suggests lightness perception in uniform reflectance scenes relies solely on overall luminance contrast, not local gradients.
Area of Science:
- Visual perception
- Color science
- Psychophysics
Background:
- Black rooms and veiling luminance present unique visual challenges.
- Previous research on white rooms suggests mutual illumination lowers contrast, potentially lightening appearance.
- Lightness constancy in veiled 3D scenes implies veils may not lighten perception.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how a black room appears when viewed through a veiling luminance.
- To differentiate the effects of local luminance gradients from overall luminance contrast on lightness perception.
- To test the hypothesis that lightness judgments depend only on overall luminance contrast.
Main Methods:
- Observers viewed a black room under a veiling luminance condition.
- The experiment was designed to isolate the impact of veiling luminance from mutual illumination effects.
- Participants' reports on the room's appearance and perceived veil were collected.
Main Results:
- The black room was consistently perceived as white.
- No veil was perceived by the observers.
- The results indicate a strong influence of overall luminance contrast on lightness judgments.
Conclusions:
- Lightness judgments for scenes of uniform reflectance are determined by overall luminance contrast.
- Local luminance gradients do not significantly influence perceived lightness in this context.
- The perceived lightness of a black room under veiling luminance is white, challenging prior assumptions.
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