Color Constancy

This chapter presents an account of color constancy that explains a well-known division in the data from color-constancy experiments: So-called “paper matches” exhibit a much higher level of constancy than so-called “hue-saturation matches.” It argues that the visual representation of objective color is the representation of something associated with a function from viewing circumstances to color appearances. Thus, a relatively robust constancy in the representation of objective color is perfectly consistent with a relatively less robust level of constancy in color appearance. The account also endorses Hilbert’s idea that we can represent the color of the illumination on a surface as well as the color of the surface itself. Finally, the chapter addresses an objection to the hybrid view that notes our capacity to make very fine-grained distinctions between the objective colors of surfaces.