Judging color constancy in extremely brief displays

What is it about?

Color constancy is the effect whereby the color of a surface appears the same despite changes in the color of the lighting. This experiment tested human observers' color-constancy judgements with "Mondrian" patterns presented side by side under different lights. Observers could discriminate between changes in the colors of the patterns and changes in the illumination even when the presentation times were less than 200 ms.

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Why is it important?

By this operational measure, observers seem capable of color constancy that is reliable and extremely rapid. Visual judgements about the natural chromatic relationships in patterns may be relatively easily extracted over extended areas without scrutiny.