Abney Effect - A New Take On The Abney Effect

A New Take On The Abney Effect

While the nonlinearity of neural color coding, as evidenced by the classical understanding of the Abney Effect and its use of white light to particular wavelengths of light, has been thoroughly studied in the past, a new method was undertaken by researchers at the University of Nevada. Rather than adding white light to monochromatic light, the bandwidth of the spectrum was varied. This variation of bandwidth directly targeted the three classes of cone receptor as a means of identifying any hue shifts as perceived by the human eye. The overall goal of the research was to determine whether the appearance of color was affected by the filtering effects of the spectral sensitivity of the eye. Experiments showed that the cone ratios signaled a hue was adjusted so as to produce a constant hue that matched the center wavelength of the light source. Also, the experiments conducted essentially showed that the Abney Effect does not hold for all changes in light purity, but is limited very much to certain means of purity degradation, namely the addition of white light. Since the experiments undertaken varied the bandwidth of the light, a similar albeit different means of altering the purity and therefore hue of the monochromatic light, the nonlinearity of the results displayed differently than has traditionally been seen. Ultimately, the researchers came to the conclusion that variations in spectral bandwidth cause postreceptoral mechanisms to compensate for the filtering effects imposed by cone sensitivities and preretinal absorption and that the Abney Effect occurs because the eye has, in a sense, been tricked into seeing a color which would not naturally occur and must therefore approximate the color. This approximation to compensate for the Abney Effect is a direct function of the cone excitations experienced with a broadband spectrum.