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Color constancy in natural scenes explained by global image statistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2006

DAVID H. FOSTER ,
KINJIRO AMANO  and
SÉRGIO M.C. NASCIMENTO
DAVID H. FOSTER
Affiliation:
Sensing, Imaging, and Signal Processing Group, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
KINJIRO AMANO
Affiliation:
Sensing, Imaging, and Signal Processing Group, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
SÉRGIO M.C. NASCIMENTO
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Gualtar Campus, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
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Abstract

To what extent do observers' judgments of surface color with natural scenes depend on global image statistics? To address this question, a psychophysical experiment was performed in which images of natural scenes under two successive daylights were presented on a computer-controlled high-resolution color monitor. Observers reported whether there was a change in reflectance of a test surface in the scene. The scenes were obtained with a hyperspectral imaging system and included variously trees, shrubs, grasses, ferns, flowers, rocks, and buildings. Discrimination performance, quantified on a scale of 0 to 1 with a color-constancy index, varied from 0.69 to 0.97 over 21 scenes and two illuminant changes, from a correlated color temperature of 25,000 K to 6700 K and from 4000 K to 6700 K. The best account of these effects was provided by receptor-based rather than colorimetric properties of the images. Thus, in a linear regression, 43% of the variance in constancy index was explained by the log of the mean relative deviation in spatial cone-excitation ratios evaluated globally across the two images of a scene. A further 20% was explained by including the mean chroma of the first image and its difference from that of the second image and a further 7% by the mean difference in hue. Together, all four global color properties accounted for 70% of the variance and provided a good fit to the effects of scene and of illuminant change on color constancy, and, additionally, of changing test-surface position. By contrast, a spatial-frequency analysis of the images showed that the gradient of the luminance amplitude spectrum accounted for only 5% of the variance.

Keywords

Natural scenesColor constancyImage statisticsSpatial cone-excitation ratiosSpatial-frequency analysis
Type
SURFACE COLOR PERCEPTION
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 23 , Issue 3-4 , May 2006 , pp. 341 - 349
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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