On Chromatic Adaptation and Persistence

Abstract

AbstractPersistence or invariance over changes in adaptation is examined for color matches, near‐threshold color differences, and large color differences. Persistence is usually thought to obtain for matches involving equiluminance samples under restricted but broadly useful conditions. Both small and large color differences vary over chromatic adaptation. Small differences vary less than large differences and both vary more with widely disparate conditions of adaptation than when adaptations are similar. A consequence of this finding is that color‐difference equations relate strictly to only one condition of adaptation. A corollary is that no single uniform‐chromaticity diagram can be expected to display color differences properly for different conditions of adaptation, although a uniform‐perceptual diagram could do so. What is needed to resolve the problem is an accurate method of chromatic‐adaptation transformations.