Essay On Memory Colour

A review of the Memory Colour Effect with specific focus on “Color Appearance of familiar objects: Effects of shape, texture and illumination changes”

Introduction;
Colour vision has enjoyed a space within the abilities of several creatures on earth. It seems to have evolutionary advantages in terms of categorizing various components of the environment. For example, the if a poisonous berry is consumed, it’s color will be remembered and this will help the animal to not consume it again.
“The visual displays of animals and plants are often colourful, and colour vision allows animals to respond to these signals as they forage for food, choose mates and so-forth.” (D. Osorio, 2008)
Colour Constancy & Memory Colours:
Colour constancy is the

We can hence better understand the concept of memory colours (coined by Ewald Hering in 1878) that is, the knowledge of the colours of certain objects affects perception of the actual colour of the given objects
Color Appearance of familiar objects: Effects of shape, texture and illumination changes (2008):
In this study, Olkkonen, Hansen and Gegenfurtner have attempted to understand just that- the effect of memory colours on colour appearance.
By performing 2 experiments, they tried to determine whether the memory colour could affect perception of the colour. In the second they tested this effect under varying conditions of luminance.
In the first experiment, the stimuli were 7 different fruits. The participants were told to set the colour of the photographs of the fruit to their respective colour first and then grey i.e. achromatic settings.
E.g. A banana was set past the grey point to a stage upto which it was detected with a bluish hue. When the banana was at perfect grey, the participants felt as though there was still some yellowness left to it, proving that their pre-existing knowledge of a banana as a yellow fruit was interfering with their abilities to appropriately perceive the