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Perceiving the representative surface color of real-world materials
1Department of Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Scientific Reports
|April 18, 2023
Summary
Humans can perceive the representative color of natural surfaces despite their complexity. This perception relies on simple image measurements, specifically the enhanced color of the brightest point, excluding outliers.
Area of Science:
- Visual perception
- Color science
- Computer vision
Background:
- Natural surfaces (soil, grass, skin) have complex structures, unlike uniform surfaces in perception studies.
- Despite complexity, humans accurately perceive representative surface colors.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate visual mechanisms for perceiving representative surface color.
- Analyze perception using natural and synthesized images.
- Determine how simple image properties influence color perception.
Main Methods:
- Utilized 120 natural images of diverse materials.
- Employed statistically synthesized and phase-randomized images for comparison.
- Conducted color matching experiments to assess perception.
Main Results:
- Perceived representative colors were similar to synthesized images, despite impaired shape/material perception.
- Matched colors predicted from saturation-enhanced brightest points (excluding outliers).
- Simple image measurements correlate with perceived representative color and lightness.
Conclusions:
- Human perception of representative surface color relies on straightforward image analysis.
- Visual system efficiently extracts color information from complex natural scenes.
- Findings challenge assumptions of complex processing for basic surface property perception.
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