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Appearance

Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology

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Synonyms

Color appearance; Perceptual appearance; Total appearance; Visual appearance

Definition

Visual appearance refers to how things look to the visual system. Objects have physical properties, and in this regard, optical properties are usually most relevant together with size, texture, shape, etc. But what finally matters for vision is the appearance that objects have for an observer (human observers will be mainly referred to in this article; however, this is not restrictive to human beings since there are many other living species that have similar visual processing systems). The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) as well as the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) define appearance as the aspect of visual experience by which objects are recognized [1, 2]. The ASTM specifies, furthermore, the definition of appearance from a psychophysical point of view: “perception in which the spectral and geometric aspects of a visual stimulus are integrated with its...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Buenos Aires and Conicet, Ciudad Universitaria Pab. 3 piso 4, C1428BFA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Jose Luis Caivano

  2. School of Design and Art, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia

    Paul Green-Armytage

Authors
  1. Jose Luis Caivano
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  2. Paul Green-Armytage
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jose Luis Caivano .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Design University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Ronnier Luo

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Caivano, J.L., Green-Armytage, P. (2015). Appearance. In: Luo, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_225-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_225-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27851-8

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Appearance
    Published:
    04 June 2022

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_225-2

  2. Original

    Appearance
    Published:
    06 August 2015

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_225-1

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