Effects of saturation and contrast polarity on the figure-ground organization of color on grey
Poorly saturated colors are closer to a pure grey than strongly saturated hues and, therefore, appear less colorful. Color saturation is effectively manipulated in the visual arts for balancing conflicting sensations and moods and for inducing the perception of relative distance in the pictorial pla...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2014-10-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01136/full |
| _version_ | 1819178743674961920 |
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| author | Birgitta eDresp Adam eReeves |
| author_facet | Birgitta eDresp Adam eReeves |
| author_sort | Birgitta eDresp |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Poorly saturated colors are closer to a pure grey than strongly saturated hues and, therefore, appear less colorful. Color saturation is effectively manipulated in the visual arts for balancing conflicting sensations and moods and for inducing the perception of relative distance in the pictorial plane. While perceptual science has proven quite clearly that the luminance contrast of any hue acts as a self-sufficient cue to relative depth in visual images, the role of color saturation in such figure-ground organization has remained unclear. We presented configurations of colored inducers on grey ‘test’ backgrounds to human observers. Luminance and saturation of the inducers was uniform on each trial, but varied across trials. We ran two separate experimental tasks. In the relative background brightness task, perceptual judgments indicated whether the apparent brightness of the grey test background contrasted with, assimilated to, or appeared equal (no effect) to that of a comparison background with the same luminance contrast. Contrast polarity and its interaction with color saturation affected response proportions for contrast, assimilation and no effect. In the figure-ground task, perceptual judgments indicated whether the inducers appeared to lie in front of, behind, or in the same depth with the background. Strongly saturated inducers produced larger proportions of foreground effects indicating that these inducers stand out as figure against the background. Weakly saturated inducers produced significantly larger proportions of background effects, indicating that these inducers are perceived as lying behind the backgrounds. We infer that color saturation modulates figure-ground organization, both directly by determining relative inducer depth, and indirectly, and in interaction with contrast polarity, by affecting apparent background brightness. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-22T21:47:24Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a3729e1c7cb34869a665c98e309047e5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-22T21:47:24Z |
| publishDate | 2014-10-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-a3729e1c7cb34869a665c98e309047e52022-12-21T18:11:28ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782014-10-01510.3389/fpsyg.2014.01136103978Effects of saturation and contrast polarity on the figure-ground organization of color on greyBirgitta eDresp0Adam eReeves1Strasbourg UniversityNortheastern UniversiyPoorly saturated colors are closer to a pure grey than strongly saturated hues and, therefore, appear less colorful. Color saturation is effectively manipulated in the visual arts for balancing conflicting sensations and moods and for inducing the perception of relative distance in the pictorial plane. While perceptual science has proven quite clearly that the luminance contrast of any hue acts as a self-sufficient cue to relative depth in visual images, the role of color saturation in such figure-ground organization has remained unclear. We presented configurations of colored inducers on grey ‘test’ backgrounds to human observers. Luminance and saturation of the inducers was uniform on each trial, but varied across trials. We ran two separate experimental tasks. In the relative background brightness task, perceptual judgments indicated whether the apparent brightness of the grey test background contrasted with, assimilated to, or appeared equal (no effect) to that of a comparison background with the same luminance contrast. Contrast polarity and its interaction with color saturation affected response proportions for contrast, assimilation and no effect. In the figure-ground task, perceptual judgments indicated whether the inducers appeared to lie in front of, behind, or in the same depth with the background. Strongly saturated inducers produced larger proportions of foreground effects indicating that these inducers stand out as figure against the background. Weakly saturated inducers produced significantly larger proportions of background effects, indicating that these inducers are perceived as lying behind the backgrounds. We infer that color saturation modulates figure-ground organization, both directly by determining relative inducer depth, and indirectly, and in interaction with contrast polarity, by affecting apparent background brightness.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01136/fullColor PerceptionColorimetryDepth PerceptionAchromatic contrast discriminationLuminance Contrast Sensitivity |
| spellingShingle | Birgitta eDresp Adam eReeves Effects of saturation and contrast polarity on the figure-ground organization of color on grey Frontiers in Psychology Color Perception Colorimetry Depth Perception Achromatic contrast discrimination Luminance Contrast Sensitivity |
| title | Effects of saturation and contrast polarity on the figure-ground organization of color on grey |
| title_full | Effects of saturation and contrast polarity on the figure-ground organization of color on grey |
| title_fullStr | Effects of saturation and contrast polarity on the figure-ground organization of color on grey |
| title_full_unstemmed | Effects of saturation and contrast polarity on the figure-ground organization of color on grey |
| title_short | Effects of saturation and contrast polarity on the figure-ground organization of color on grey |
| title_sort | effects of saturation and contrast polarity on the figure ground organization of color on grey |
| topic | Color Perception Colorimetry Depth Perception Achromatic contrast discrimination Luminance Contrast Sensitivity |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01136/full |
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