Contrast, constancy, and measurements of perceived lightness under parametric manipulation of surface slant and surface reflectance

Abstract

Across many scenes, local contrast provides a valid cue to surface reflectance, but it is not the only such cue. To generalize beyond theories of lightness that rely exclusively on local contrast, we need to know which other potential cues matter. We had observers make lightness matches between two scene locations, and varied the surface slant and local surround reflectance of one of the locations. When local contrast was a valid cue to reflectance, all observers were approximately lightness constant. When it was not, observers' lightness matches were intermediate between contrast matching and lightness constancy. For most observers, surface slant exerted an effect on perceived lightness beyond that explainable by local contrast.