Time course of chromatic adaptation studied by color appearance of achromatic patch

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate the time course of chromatic adaptation in a 3D space. The two room technique was used to carry out the experiment. A subject looked at an achromatic test patch placed in the test room through a small window opened on a separating wall between the test room and the subject room. The subject room was illuminated white and changed to a red light. The window was opened for certain duration from that changing point to control the adaptation time and a subject reported the color of the test patch by the elementary color naming at the end of the duration. The color appearance changed rapidly at short adaptation time and eventually stopped. The color appearance change reached 90 % of the entire change at 33 seconds in the averaged of five subjects.