Familiar objects and memory color

Memory color for a set of eight different familiar objects has been investigated. Our results obtained with one hundred observers, eighty color samples of NCS, and two illuminants indicate that: (a) the shifts that are produced in the dominant wavelength with memory depend on the familiar object considered; (b) colorimetric purity, as a measure of saturation, of the remembered objects is not the same as that of the familiar objects; (c) in the SVF representation space, with illuminant D65 and regardless of experience in color matching of the observer, the color that was best remembered was purple aubergine and the worst remembered was brown chestnut. With the illuminant A, red tomato was the best remembered color and yellow lemon the worst. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Col Res Appl, 23: 416–427, 1998