Brown, Joseph;
(2022)
The Land Experiments in Colour Vision - Colour as a Physical, Phenomenological and Synthetic Object.
Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis analyses the historical and intellectual context of Edwin Land’s experiments in colour vision. I argue that the colour vision research program and retinex theory developed by Land and his colleagues provided a satisfying synthesis of two divergent schools in the history of colour science. The first chapter of this thesis establishes the existence of the “physical” school of colour science. The defining feature of this school was the belief in the colour atomism hypothesis. This is the idea that the colour perceived at a point in the visual field is completely determined by the physical properties of the light rays entering the retina at that point. In other words, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the physical properties of light rays and colour sensation at a point in the visual field. The second chapter establishes the existence of the “phenomenological” school of colour science. The defining feature of this school was the discovery of colour phenomena which could not be accounted for by the colour atomism hypothesis. Among these phenomena were “coloured shadows”, “simultaneous colour contrast”, and “colour constancy”. The third chapter shows how Land’s colour vision research program and retinex theory reconciled these two schools. Land and his colleagues demonstrated that the colour atomism hypothesis is a special case, valid only for points of light. The colour phenomena studied by the “phenomenological” school could be predicted by a computational model – retinex theory – which accounted for colour as it is perceived over a wide visual field, rather than simply at single points. In this process, Land and colleagues built up a new understanding of colour vision as a practical utility evolved for the organism, designed to achieve colour constancy.
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | M.Phil |
| Title: | The Land Experiments in Colour Vision - Colour as a Physical, Phenomenological and Synthetic Object |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2021. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Science and Technology Studies |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10162002 |
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