The variable resolution and limited processing capacity of the human visual system requires us to sample the world with eye movements and attentive processes. Here we show that where observers look can strongly modulate their reports of simple surface attributes, such as lightness. When observers matched the color of natural objects they based their judgments on the brightest parts of the objec...

Visual attention is used to select part of the visual array for higher-level processing. Visual selection can be based on spatial location, but it has also been demonstrated that multiple locations can be selected simultaneously on the basis of a visual feature such as color. One task that has been used to demonstrate feature-based attention is the judgement of the symmetry of simple four-color...

Lightness constancy is the remarkable ability of human observers to perceive surface reflectance accurately despite variations in illumination and context. Two successful approaches to understanding lightness perception that have developed along independent paths are anchoring theory and Bayesian theories. Anchoring theory is a set of rules that predict lightness percepts under a wide range of ...

The oldest lightness illusion is called simultaneous contrast. A gray square placed on a black background appears lighter than an identical gray square placed on a white background. For over a hundred years, this illusion has been generally attributed to lateral inhibition or spatial filtering. Receptor cells stimulated by the gray square on the white background are strongly inhibited by nearby...

System gamma is the end-to-end exponent that describes the relationship between the relative luminance values at capture and the reproduced image. The system gamma preferred by subjects is known to vary with the background luminance condition and the image in question. We confirm the previous two findings using an image database with both high and low dynamic range images (from 102 to 107), but...

A theory of illusory transparency and lightness is described for monocular and binocular images containing X-, T- and I-contour junctions. This theory asserts that the geometric and luminance relationships of contour junctions induce illusory transparency and lightness percepts by causing a phenomenal scission of a homogenous luminance into multiple contributions. Specifically, it is argued tha...

The anchoring of lightness perception was tested in simple visual fields composed of only two regions by placing observes inside opaque acrylic hemispheres. Both side-by-side and center/surround configurations were tested. The results, which undermine Gilchrist and Bonato's (1995) recent claim that surrounds tend to appear white, indicate that anchoring involves both relative luminance and rela...

Observers made forced-choice opaque/luminous responses to targets of varying luminance and varying size presented (1) on the wall of a laboratory, (2) as a disk within an annulus, and (3) embedded within a Mondrian array presented within a vision tunnel. Lightness matches were also made for nearby opaque surfaces. The results show that the threshold luminance value at which a target begins to a...

Broiler meat quality is one of the primary factors considered by the poultry industry. This study was conducted to estimate heritability and genetic correlation coefficients for meat quality traits in a single male broiler line. The meat ultimate pH (24 h after slaughter) and lightness presented the highest heritability estimates. Given the estimated genetic correlations, the pH measured at 15 ...