The discrimination of chromatic textures

Abstract

Color discrimination is influenced by chromatic distributions such as they appear on differently illuminated 3D surfaces (T. Hansen, M. Giesel, & K. R. Gegenfurtner, 2008). Here, we measured discrimination thresholds for chromatically variegated stimuli and modeled the data employing a model with multiple chromatic mechanisms. Each mechanism has a differently tuned half-wave-rectified cosine-shaped sensitivity profile centered at a different chromatic direction. To estimate thresholds, the model's responses to a test and a comparison stimulus are determined. A detection variable is calculated by taking the difference of the responses to the two stimuli and by a subsequent nonlinear combination of the responses. The model was fitted to the data presented in T. Hansen et al. (2008) and to data from two new experiments. In the first experiment, we measured discrimination thresholds for stimuli chromatically variegated along a direction orthogonal to the one used in the previous experiments. In the second experiment, we investigated the interplay between chromatic distributions and different mean contrast levels. We found that a model with eight mechanisms accounted for the effect of chromatic variation within the stimuli and provided a better fit to the discrimination thresholds than a four mechanisms model.