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Definition
The color spreading is a long-range assimilative spread of color emanating from a thin-colored contour running in the same direction/continuation or being contiguous/adjacent to a darker chromatic contour and imparting a figure-ground effect across a large area. The two main examples of color spreading are the well-known neon color spreading and the watercolor illusion.
Neon Color Spreading
In 1971, Varin [1] studied a novel “chromatic spreading” phenomenon induced when four sets of concentric black circumferences, arranged in a cross-like shape, are partially composed of blue arcs, thus producing a virtual large central blue circle (Fig. 1a). The virtual circle appears as a ghostly transparent circular veil of chromatic translucent diffusion of bluish tint spreading among the boundaries of the blue arcs and filling in the entire illusory circle, induced by the terminations of the black arcs (Fig. 1).
References
Varin, D.: Fenomeni di contrasto e diffusione cromatica nell’organizzazione spaziale del campo percettivo. Riv. Psicol. 65, 101–128 (1971)
van Tuijl, H.F.J.M.: A new visual illusion: neon-like color spreading and complementary color induction between subjective contours. Acta Psychol. 39, 441–445 (1975)
Bressan, P., Mingolla, E., Spillmann, L., Watanabe, T.: Neon colour spreading: a review. Perception 26, 1353–1366 (1997)
Pinna, B., Brelstaff, G., Spillmann, L.: Surface color from boundaries: a new ‘watercolor’ illusion. Vis. Res. 41, 2669–2676 (2001)
Pinna, B., Spillmann, L., Werner, J.S.: Anomalous induction of brightness and surface qualities: a new illusion due to radial lines and chromatic rings. Perception 32, 1289–1305 (2003)
Pinna, B., Grossberg, S.: The watercolor illusion and neon color spreading: a unified analysis of new cases and neural mechanisms. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A Opt. Image Sci. Vis. 22, 2207–2221 (2005)
Werner, J.S., Pinna, B., Spillmann, L.: The brain and the world of illusory colors. Sci. Am. 3, 90–95 (2007)
Pinna, B.: Watercolor illusion. Scholarpedia 3, 5352 (2008)
von der Heydt, R., Pierson, R.: Dissociation of color and figure-ground effects in the watercolor illusion. Spat. Vis. 19, 323–340 (2006)
Devinck, F., Knoblauch, K.A.: Common signal detection model for the perception and discrimination of the watercolor effect. J. Vis. 12, 1–14 (2012)
Komatsu, H.: The neural mechanisms of perceptual filling-in. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 7, 220–231 (2006)
Murakami, I.: Perceptual filling-in. In: Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. Springer, Berlin (2008)
Zhou, H., Friedman, H.S., von der Heydt, R.: Coding of border ownership in monkey visual cortex. J. Neurosci. 20, 6594–6611 (2000)
von der Heydt, R., Zhou, H., Friedman, H.S.: Neural coding of border ownership: implications for the theory of figure-ground perception. In: Behrmann, M., Kimchi, R., Olson, C.R. (eds.) Perceptual Organization in Vision: Behavioral and Neural Perspectives, pp. 281–304. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah (2003)
Friedman, H.S., Zhou, H., von der Heydt, R.: The coding of uniform color figures in monkey visual cortex. J. Physiol. Lond. 54, 593–613 (2003)
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Pinna, B. (2020). Color Spreading, Neon Color Spreading, and Watercolor Illusion. In: Shamey, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_267-2
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Color Spreading, Neon Color Spreading, and Watercolor Illusion- Published:
- 05 December 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_267-2
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Color Spreading, Neon Color Spreading, and Watercolor Illusion- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_267-1