Luminance Contrast Affects the Binocular Color Fusion Limit

Abstract

ABSTRACT When the color difference between the images perceived by the left eye and the right eye exceeds a certain threshold, the binocular rivalry could be activated, which is the main cause of visual fatigue. This threshold is referred to as the binocular color fusion limit. Past studies on the quantitative measurement of the binocular color fusion limit were always performed by presenting the stimulus (varying in color, disparity, size, etc.) under a dark background. To investigate how the background luminance and the luminance contrast influence the binocular color fusion limit, a series of forced-choice psychophysical experiments were conducted in a three-dimensional display for three luminance levels of both the stimulus and background. Under each luminance level, the color fusion limit for the D50 chromaticity point was measured on four opposite color directions in the CIE 1976 u F ’v F ’ uniform color space. The results show an increment of color fusion limit as the stimulus-background luminance contrast increases.