Parabolic achromatic color matching functions: Dependence on incremental and decremental luminance

Abstract

Either the brightness or lightness of a disk surrounded by an annulus is characterized in the most general case by a parabolic function of the annulus luminance when plotted on a log–log scale. This relationship has been modeled with a theory of achromatic color computation based on edge integration and contrast gain control [J. Vis. 10, 1 (2010)1534-736210.1167/10.14.40]. We tested predictions of this model in new psychophysical experiments. Our results support the theory and reveal a previously unobserved property of parabolic matching functions that depends on the disk contrast polarity. We interpret this property in terms of a neural edge integration model incorporating data from macaque monkey physiology that indicates different physiological gain factors for incremental and decremental stimuli.