Cone Contributions to Colour Constancy

Abstract

Colour constancy refers to the stable perception of object colour under changing illumination conditions. This problem has been reformulated as relational colour constancy, or the ability of the observer to discriminate between material changes and changes in illumination. It has been suggested that local cone excitation ratios play a prominent role in achieving such constancy. Here we show that perceptual colour constancy measured by achromatic adjustments is to a large part complete after 25 ms. This speaks against a prominent role for receptor adaptation, which takes significantly longer. We also found no difference in colour constancy between colour changes that were compatible with a change of illuminant, and between colour changes where local cone ratios were uncorrelated between the two illuminants. Our results show that constant cone ratios are not necessary for colour constancy.