Chapter 1.The colours and the spectrum

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademic

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.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProgress in Colour Studies: Cognition, language and beyond
EditorsLindsay W. MacDonald, Carole P. Biggam, Galina V. Paramei
PublisherJohn Benjamins
Chapter1
Pages5-22
Volume217
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Keywords

  • ecological physics
  • spectrum
  • phenomenology
  • colours
  • parts of white

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