Color-Matching Responses to Red Light of Varying Luminance and Purity in Complex and Simple Images

Abstract

The parts of a complex, semirandom image containing 100 different mixtures of red and tungsten light were matched to Munsell color papers. Similar combinations of the two illuminants were matched separately as aperture colors (i.e., as isolated test patches in a dark surround) and also as test patches on eight homogeneous backgrounds containing mixtures of the two illuminants. A total of 3500 matches were obtained from 14 observers. The complex image and certain of the simple-image sets gave hue, lightness, and saturation patterns, over the sampled ranges of purity and luminance, that were almost identical, especially when compared with the aperture color responses. However, the results may support the possibility of a complex image that would produce “richer” hue characteristics than those generated by a set of simple images, if the latter were confined to a single background mixture of red and tungsten light.