Volume 6, Number 2, Article 2, Pages 106-118 doi:10.1167/6.2.2 http://journalofvision.org/6/2/2/ ISSN 1534-7362
Cues to an Equivalent Lighting Model
Huseyin Boyaci
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Katja Doerschner
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
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Laurence T. Maloney
Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA
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Abstract

We investigate how human observers make use of three candidate cues in their lightness judgments. Each cue potentially provides information about the spatial distribution of light sources in complex, rendered 3D scenes. The illumination (lighting model) of each scene consisted of a punctate light source combined with a diffuse light source. The cues were (1) cast shadows, (2) surface shading, and (3) specular highlights. Observers were asked to judge the albedo of a matte grayscale test patch that varied in orientation with respect to the punctate light source. We tested their performance in scenes containing only one type of cue and in scenes where all three cue types were present. From the results, we deduced how accurately they had estimated the spatial distribution of light sources in each scene given the cues available. In Experiment 1, we established that all of the individual cues were used in isolation. We showed that the highlight and cast shadow cues in isolation were used by more than half of the observers. We could reject the hypothesis that the observers did not make use of the shading cue for only one observer. In Experiment 2, we showed that the observers combined information from multiple cues when all three cues were presented together.

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History
Received March 27, 2005; published February 6, 2006
Citation
Boyaci, H., Doerschner, K., & Maloney, L. T. (2006). Cues to an Equivalent Lighting Model. Journal of Vision, 6(2):2, 106-118, http://journalofvision.org/6/2/2/, doi:10.1167/6.2.2.
Keywords
surface color perception, albedo, cue combination, lightness
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