Relationship between material image features and color recognition: effect of specular highlight color

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K00372
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Kansei informatics
• Research Institution: Yamagata University
• Principal Investigator: Nagai Takehiro 山形大学, 大学院理工学研究科, 准教授 (40549036)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 色覚 / 質感 / 心理物理学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Specular highlights on typical objects reflect illumination colors directly, and thus is a potential cue for color constancy. In this study, we aim to elucidate the relationship between specular highlights and color perception using psychophysical experiments. First, we found no evidence that temporal color changes of specular highlights are recognized as illumination color changes. However, secondly, we showed that color constancy is stronger in scenes containing many glossy objects with specular highlights than in scenes containing only matte objects. Also, this superiority of glossy objects over matte objects disappeared in noise images whose low-level image statistics were the same as glossy objects. These results suggest that there is a mechanism in the human brain that adjusts color appearance according to specular highlight color so that the influences of illumination colors are removed from color appearance.

Free Research Field

視覚心理物理学