Effect of Color Contrast on Visual Lobe Shape Characteristics

Abstract

This study examined the effects of the color contrast of target and background objects on visual lobe area and shape characteristics. For visual lobe mapping the participants had to locate a single colour target amongst a homogeneous background of non-targets during a brief presentation. Targets of six different colors (red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple) were tested, the non-targets were black and the background was metallic grey. The results showed that color contrast did not affect visual lobe parameters under the constant luminance contrast condition of 6:1 tested in the experiment. Subjective preference evaluations showed that the blue and purple targets resulted in the highest visual comfort and overall preference, respectively, while the yellow target was the most negatively rated. The color preferences here were somewhat different from the previous color combination studies. It might be due in part to the constant luminance contrast and display polarity used here.