Abstract
AbstractThis paper resolves a paradox concerning colour constancy. On the one hand, our intuitive, pre‐theoretical concept holds that colour constancy involves invariance in the perceived colours of surfaces under changes in illumination. On the other, there is a robust scientific consensus that colour constancy can persist in cerebral achromatopsia, a profound impairment in the ability to perceive colours. The first stage of the solution advocates pluralism about our colour constancy capacities. The second details the close relationship between colour constancy and contrast. The third argues that achromatopsics retain a basic type of colour constancy associated with invariants in contrast processing. The fourth suggests that one person‐level, conscious upshot of such processing is the visual awareness of chromatic contrasts ‘at’ the edges of surfaces, implicating the ‘colour for form’ perceptual function. This primitive type of constancy sheds new light on our most basic perceptual capacities, which mark the lower borders of representational mind.
Highlights
The notion of perceptual constancy is receiving renewed interest in the philosophy of perception
The second, less frequently encountered approach targets the other end of the continuum: what are the most primitive types of perceptual constancy? What are the basic constituents or components of the mature capacity? What do these reveal about the lower borders of perception and representational mind? This paper applies this second approach to the case of colour, developing an account of a basic type of colour constancy
I argue instead for pluralism about our constancy capacities, which opens the door for alternative concepts fitted to the achromatopsic case
Summary
What is colour constancy? There is, substantial disagreement on this issue. I think that most parties would accept this first-pass characterisation: Constancy for Colours: Colour constancy is constancy with respect to the perceived colours of objects viewed under changing/varying illumination. Another study by Barbur and colleagues (2004: 25), involving different stimulus conditions, found that ‘either normal or slightly reduced, but functioning, ICC [instantaneous colour constancy] mechanisms are present in [three] achromatopsic subject[s].’ This brings us to the paradox of colour constancy. Perhaps it was a mistake to define ‘colour constancy’ in terms of ‘perceived colour,’ where this implied a capacity to have conscious visual experiences that present the colours of objects. Glossing over important details, such a view might allow for perceptual representations of colour in creatures that lack conscious awareness of colour On this view, the attribution of constancy in achromatopsia might be vindicated, if these subjects were to possess a non-conscious capacity for representing object colours, which exhibited the relevant type of illumination-invariance. The resulting pluralism opens the door for alternative concepts, which may depart from Constancy for Colours in fundamental ways – even to the extent of allowing types of constancy in the absence of any perceptual representation of colour
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