Paradoxical impact of memory on color appearance of faces

Maryam Hasantash, Rosa Lafer-Sousa, Arash Afraz and Bevil R. Conway ()
Additional contact information
Maryam Hasantash: Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences
Rosa Lafer-Sousa: MIT
Arash Afraz: National Institute of Mental Health, NIH
Bevil R. Conway: National Institute of Mental Health, NIH

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract What is color vision for? Here we compared the extent to which memory modulates color appearance of objects and faces. Participants matched the colors of stimuli illuminated by low-pressure sodium light, which renders scenes monochromatic. Matches for fruit were not predicted by stimulus identity. In contrast, matches for faces were predictable, but surprising: faces appeared green and looked sick. The paradoxical face-color percept could be explained by a Bayesian observer model constrained by efficient coding. The color-matching data suggest that the face-color prior is established by visual signals arising from the recently evolved L-M cone system, not the older S-cone channel. Taken together, the results show that when retinal mechanisms of color vision are impaired, the impact of memory on color perception is greatest for face color, supporting the idea that trichromatic color plays an important role in social communication.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10073-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-10073-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10073-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().