A review of the field of lightness perception from Helmholtz to the present shows the most adequate theories of lightness perception to be the intrinsic image models. Nevertheless, these models fail on 2 important counts: They contain no anchoring rule, and they fail to account for the pattern of errors in surface lightness. Recent work on both the anchoring problem and the problem of errors has produced a new model of lightness perception, one that is qualitatively different from the intrinsic image models. The new model, which is based on a combination of local and global anchoring of lightness values, appears to provide an unprecedented account of a wide range of empirical results, both classical and recent, especially the pattern of errors. It provides a unified account of both illumination-dependent failures of constancy and background-dependent failures of constancy, resolving a number of long-standing puzzles.

The perceived shade of gray depends primarily on the luminance relationship between surfaces percieved to lie in the same plane and not between surfaces that are merely adjacent in the retinal image. This result implies that depth perception must precede lightness perception and that lateral inhibition cannot explain lightness constancy.

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Experiments have recently been reported in which a decisive change in perceived lightness was produced by a change in perceived spatial position, with no important change in the retinal image. A number of previous studies had found little or no such effect. Experiments of the kind that produced these effects and of the kind that do not produce these effects are presented here. The main differences between these two kinds of experiments are discussed. One difference is whether the display allows the target to be part of one ratio in one spatial position but another in the other spatial position. Another difference concerns the range of luminances within the display. Also discussed are the implications of these findings for cognitive vs. S-R theories, the order of processing depth and lightness, laboratory data vs. experience, the role of lateral inhibition in lightness perception, and theories of lightness perception in general.

A pattern of luminances equivalent to that of a traditional simultaneous lightness display (two equal gray squares, one on a white background and the other on an adjacent black background) was presented to observers under two conditions, and matches were obtained for both perceived reflectance and perceived illumination level of the squares and their backgrounds. In one condition, the edge dividing the two backgrounds was made to appear as the boundary between a white and a black surface, as in the traditional pattern. The squares then were perceived as almost the same shade of middle gray. In the other condition, a context was supplied that made the edge between the backgrounds appear as the boundary between two illumination levels, causing one square to appear black and the other white. These results were interpreted as a problem for local ratio theories, local edge theories, and lateral inhibition explanations of lightness constancy, but as support for the concepts of edge classification, edge integration, and the retinal image as a dual image.Theories that appear different or even opposite may nonetheless share a common starting assumption, and the preoccupation with such apparent differences may serve to obscure flaws in the common assumption. Believing this to be true for theories of lightness perception, we have chosen an alternative, and somewhat radical, starting point for the experiments we report here. This approach will be more easily grasped if we begin by reviewing the central role of luminance information in current theories of lightness perception.The Photometer Metaphor: Absolute Lumiuauce Levels as the Basic Iuput Implicit in most theory and research on the perception of surface lightness is a conception we would call the photometer metaphor. This term refers to the assumption that, fundamentally, the visual system measures the intensity of light reflected by each point in a visual scene. Helmholtz and Hering, although their views were usually in opposition, both assumed that absolute intensity of reflected light (luminance) was available as an input to the visual system. Of course, neither their theories of lightness perception nor the more modem theories are