The colours and the spectrum
Jan J. Koenderink
John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks October 23, 2018 DOI: 10.1075/z.217.01koe (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that phenomenological accounts of colour and spectral colorimetry, often treated as mutually exclusive, can be related formally, and identifies which instances do or do not require spectral notions in an essential way, offering a perspective that acknowledges both. |
Abstract
Abstract Colours and spectrum stand in an ambiguous and perhaps awkward relation to each other. There exist formal accounts in phenomenology with non-trivial structure that do not refer to the spectrum at all, whereas in contradistinction, conventional colorimetry is a formal account that focuses fully upon the spectral description of radiation. It describes precisely the basic psychophysical facts of discrimination of radiant beams – threshold psychophysics. These accounts are often conceived of as mutually exclusive. I explore formal relations and identify instances that do or don’t require spectral notions in some essential way. This yields novel insights in colour vision, in the most general sense, from a perspective that acknowledges both phenomenology and colorimetry.