Effects of natural and unnatural spatial structure on color constancy

摘要

The recognition of spatial structure is important for color constancy because we cannot identify the color of an object under different illuminations without knowing which space it is in and how the space is illuminated. To show the importance of natural structure of environment to color constancy, it was investigated how color appearance was affected by an unnatural viewing condition where a spatial structure was distorted. Observers were judged color of a test patch placed in the center of a small room illuminated by white or reddish lights. In a natural viewing condition an observer saw the room (s) through a viewing window, whereas in an unnatural viewing condition the scene structure was jumbled by a kaleidoscope-type viewing box. Results showed that the degree of color constancy was decreased in the unnatural viewing condition, suggesting that naturalness and spatial factors play an important role in color constancy under a complex environment.