An Intrinsic Image Network with Properties of Human Lightness Perception

Abstract

Research on human lightness perception has revealed important principles of how we perceive achromatic surface color, but has resulted in few image-computable models. Here we examine the performance of a recent artificial neural network architecture in a lightness matching task. We find similarities between the network’s behaviour and human perception. The network has human-like levels of partial lightness constancy, and its log reflectance matches are an approximately linear function of log illuminance, as is the case with human observers. We also find that previous computational models of lightness perception have much weaker lightness constancy than is typical of human observers. We briefly discuss some challenges and possible future directions for using artificial neural networks as a starting point for models of human lightness perception.