What determines the color appearance of real objects viewed under natural conditions? The light reflected from different locations on a single object can vary enormously. This variation is enhanced when the material properties of the object are changed from matte to glossy. Yet humans have no trouble assigning a color name to most things. We studied how people perceive the color of spheres in complex scenes. Observers viewed graphics simulations of a three-dimensional scene containing two spheres, test and match. The observer's task was to adjust the match sphere until its color appearance was the same as that of the test sphere. The match sphere was always matte, and observers varied its color by changing the simulated spectral reflectance function. The surface gloss of the test spheres was varied across conditions. The data show that for fixed test sphere body reflectance, color appearance depends on surface gloss. This effect is small, however, compared to the variation that would be expected if observers simply matched the average of the light reflected from the test.
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