Effects of Colors on the Feeling of Being Dazzled Evoked by Stimuli with Luminance Gradients

Abstract

The sensation of being dazzled by light was investigated, and the effects of colors on the feeling were assessed using stimuli composed of a disk and a surrounding annulus with luminance gradient, which had a glowing appearance. The colors of the disk and annulus were varied, while the luminance of each pixel was unchanged. In addition, disk and maximum annulus luminances were also varied. Ten participants were asked to rate the feeling of being dazzled for the stimuli. Results of a four-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the main effect of disk color was not significant, whereas the annulus color was. Furthermore, there was significant interaction of the disk color and the annulus color. On the whole, the feeling of being dazzled for the light-blue or pink annulus was stronger than that for the other colors, while the light-blue (pink) annulus did not significantly differ in that feeling from the yellow, green, or gray annulus when the disk color was light-blue (pink). This indicates that the same disk color as the annulus color tended to reduce the feeling of being dazzled.