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Misidentifying illuminant changes in natural scenes due to failures in relational colour constancy
Sérgio M C Nascimento1, David H Foster2
1Physics Center of Minho and Porto Universities (CF-UM-UP), Gualtar Campus, University of Minho, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal.
Proceedings. Biological Sciences
|November 29, 2023
Summary
Human observers can misidentify lighting changes, mistaking them for surface property shifts. This study reveals such errors in natural scenes are linked to failures in relational color constancy.
Area of Science:
- Vision science
- Color perception
- Computational imaging
Background:
- Surface colors can appear inconsistent under changing illumination.
- Humans typically distinguish lighting changes from surface property changes, even when color constancy fails.
- This ability is linked to consistent perceived color relations, based on spatial ratios of cone photoreceptor excitations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if natural scenes cause misidentification of illuminant changes.
- To determine if these misidentifications stem from failures in relational color constancy.
Main Methods:
- Hyperspectral image pairs of natural scenes were presented on a controlled display.
- One image set simulated illuminant changes; the other included corrections for spatial ratio deviations.
- Observer judgments were recorded to identify misidentifications.
Main Results:
- Observers systematically misidentified corrected images as resulting from illuminant changes.
- Error frequency increased with the magnitude of spatial ratio deviations.
- These deviations strongly correlated with failures in relational color constancy.
Conclusions:
- Failures in relational color constancy contribute to misidentifying illuminant changes in natural scenes.
- Deviations in spatial ratios of cone excitations are key factors in these perceptual errors.
- Understanding these failures is crucial for accurate visual perception models.
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