Increasing magnitude of color differences amplifies category effects

Previous studies have identified differences in sensitivity characteristics between color discrimination and perception of suprathreshold color differences. However, it remains highly unclear how color difference sensitivity changes with increasing magnitudes of color difference along various color hues. This study aimed to quantify the sensitivity transition across various magnitudes of color differences and uncover the underlying mechanisms. Color discrimination sensitivities were measured using an adaptive staircase method for 32 isoluminant pedestal colors in the u'v' chromaticity diagram. For suprathreshold color differences, we employed the Maximum Likelihood Difference Scaling (MLDS) method to measure sensitivity to various color difference levels for the same 32 colors. Our findings confirmed the differences in sensitivity characteristics between discrimination and suprathreshold color difference perception. Furthermore, we observed increased sensitivities at many color category boundaries in suprathreshold color difference perception. By investigating the relation between the category effects and the color difference size levels through a model simulation, our findings suggest that the influence of color categories on the perception of color differences may become more pronounced as the magnitude of color differences increases.