Reverse correlation analysis of chromatic contrast perception based on chromatic mechanism models

Abstract

We applied the classification image (CI) method to examine the effects of heterochromatic noise on color perception. Moreover, rather than the typical CI analysis procedure, we analyzed the CI data based on chromatic mechanism models. The stimulus was a superposition image of two uniformly colored squares (signal images) and a multicolored texture (a noise image), whose colors were chosen from an isoluminant plane of the Derrington-Krauskopf-Lennie color space. The observers judged the relative chromatic contrasts of the two signal squares on the different noise textures. The CI showed strong color modulations, whose color directions differed from the signal. Additionally, the model analysis demonstrated that the model with four mechanisms and the cardinal mechanisms model were not inferior to the model with more mechanisms with regard to explaining our experiment data; the cardinal model's fit with the observer's behaviors was improved by simply adjusting the relative sensitivities of the four mechanisms.