Effect of adapting field size on chromatic adaptation

The human visual system adapts to changes in white tone of the illumination to maintain approximately the same object color appearance. Chromatic adaptation transforms (CAT) were developed to predict corresponding colors, which are colors that look the same under a wide range of illuminants. However, existing CATs fail to accurately predict corresponding colors, particularly under colored illumination, because of an inaccurate estimation of the degree of adaptation. In this study, the impact of the adapting field size on the degree of adaptation was investigated. A memory color matching experiment was conducted, in a real scene, with the background adapting field varying in the field of view, luminance and chromaticity to provide data for the development of a more comprehensive CAT. Results show that a larger field of view leads to a more complete adaptation, despite a much lower background luminance.