Perceptual scission of surface-lightness and illumination: An examination of the gelb effect

Abstract

An attempt was made to examine how the photometric equation: luminance (L)=albedo (A)×illuminance (I) could be solved perceptually when a test field (TF) was not seen as “figure”, but as “ground”. A gray disk with two black or white patches was used as the TF. Illuminance of the TF was changed over 2.3 log units and TF albedo was varied from 2.5 to 8.0 in Munsell value. Albedos of the black- and white-appearing patches were 1.5 and 9.5 in Munsell values, respectively. Two types of category judgments for apparent TF lightness (A′) and apparent overall illumination (I′) were made on the total of 40 TFs (5 illuminances×4 TF-albedos×2 patch-albedos). The results indicated that when the black patches were added to the TF, A′ was indistinguishable from I′ and when the white patches were placed on the TF, A′ and I′ could be distinguished from each other. The Gelb effect was interpreted as a manifestation of such A′–I′ scission. It was concluded, therefore, that as far as the Gelb effect was observed, the perceptual system could solve the equation, L=A×I, in the sense that for a fixed L, the product of A′ and I′ would be constant.