Global color impressions of multicolored textured patterns with equal unique hue elements

A global color impression from a multicolored textured pattern can be identified. It is not clear, however, how such a single color impression can be determined from the elemental colors of the multicolored textured pattern. To investigate this question, two hypotheses were evaluated. The first hypothesis is that a single color impression is determined by the colorimetric average of the elemental colors in the textured pattern (colorimetric average hypothesis). The second hypothesis is that the impression is influenced by the color appearances of the elemental colors in the textured pattern (color appearance hypothesis). Using an asymmetrical color matching method, the authors obtained single color impressions for random‐dot textured patterns consisting of two colors with the same unique hue and brightness but each with a different saturation. Our results showed that the matched colors were not located on the line connecting the two elemental colors of the pattern, but rather were on the curved unique hue loci line. Furthermore, the chromaticities of the matches shifted toward a higher saturation than the colorimetric averages. These results support the color appearance hypothesis and suggest that a single color impression from a multicolored textured pattern is determined by a mechanism that integrates the color appearances, i.e., hue, saturation, and brightness (or lightness), of the elemental colors in the pattern. In addition, it seems that the integration of the color appearances is not a simple process, because the apparent saturation of the color impression was higher than that of the colorimetric average and the average of the chromaticities of the colors in the pattern. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 32, 267–277, 2007