Abstract
Colour Relationalism asserts that colours are non-intrinsic or inherently relational properties of objects, properties that depend not only on a target object but in addition on some relation(s) that object bears to other objects. The most powerful argument for Relationalism (Cohen 2009) infers the inherently relational character of colour from cases in which one’s experience of a colour contextually depends on one’s experience of other colours. Experienced colour layering—say looking at grass through a tinted window and experiencing opaque green through transparent grey—demands a contextual interdependency of one’s experience of one of these colours on one’s experience of the other. However, most if not all colour ontologies, and core perceptual experiential mechanisms like acquaintance and representation, can accommodate colour layering. It follows that experienced colour layering is consistent with colours being non-relational—this contextual interdependency of colours does not entail the constitutive dependency of one colour on the other. I utilize colour layering to examine the inference from the contextual to the constitutive interdependency of colours as it is employed in a well-known argument for Relationalism. I conclude that our justification for Relationalism is far weaker than Relationalists suggest. I first introduce readers to colour layering, then to Relationalism, and following this focus on the intersection of these topics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Setting aside colours for a moment, here are rough experiential and causal characterizations of ‘transparent’, ‘transluscent’ and ‘opaque’. Experientially, to be transparent is to be something that can be clearly seen through, causally it is to transmit (as opposed to reflect) light without distortion. An object is transluscent to the extent that things are seen less clearly through it, and as it begins to distort (e.g., scatter) light that it transmits. Opaque objects cannot be seen through, and transmit no light. In this context ‘thing’ or ‘object’ must apply at least to liquids, solids and gases.
In psychology, layered visual experiences—scissions—have been of particular interest since the 1970s and are actively studied today. Metelli (1974) is a classic work. Kitaoka (2005) corrects some deficiencies, and Anderson (2008) offers an alternative and summarizes some seemingly fatal problems for Metelli’s view and the views based on it. Kingdom (2011) is an excellent review article of relevant phenomena, and Casati (2009) provides a good summary and connects the issue to some philosophical debates. See also, e.g., Khang and Zaidi (2002a, b) and Wollschläger and Anderson (2009). It is fair to say that there is no general account of scissions that dominates contemporary empirical literature. Instead, we should expect that scissions will remain an active area of empirical research at least in the near-term.
This suggestion goes against the spirit of some constancy models, where preference is given to the distal or opaque surface colours over the contributions filters, volumes and illuminants make to visual stimuli. However, this tension is not a legitimate philosophical reason to exclude this kind of case from colour constancy.
These cases are to some extent in conflict with a traditional computational approach to colour constancy which hypothesizes that the variable element is discounted by our visual systems, and so not experienced by us, or at minimum that this is the relevant goal or ideal of our visual systems. Land and McCann (1971) and Land (1986) are well-known examples, and Brainard and Wandell (1988), Wandell (1989) Brainard et al. (1997) offer different approaches. Jameson and Hurvich (1989) is one well-known response to “discount the illuminant” approaches. Shevell and Kingdom (2008) is a worthwhile recent review of the wider literature.
In this context the relations above, below, to the right and to the left of are defined relative to the perspective of the perceiver. Thus, what is to the right of an object for one perceiver might be to the left of an object to another perceiver.
What follows roughly accords with Cohen’s Master Argument (2009, p. 24). Space prevents a thorough comparison.
For the purposes of this section it is helpful to ignore the impact of non-LOS factors on colour experience.
For example perhaps along a LOS is the book, which is illuminated by an illuminant I 1 , and viewed through some air V 1 . Consider a context in which only the book’s contribution to colour is experienced along that LOS. If one seeks to learn of the book’s colour, this context should be privileged over a context that fuses together contributions from the book, illuminant and/or air.
Note that even with fusion experiences there may be a means of “inferring” an object’s non-relational colour, namely, by trying (intellectually) to isolate the various contributions to experienced colour that an object makes across a host of fusion experiences.
There is much more to be discussed about this kind of case, but space demands a brief treatment.
References
Anderson, B. L. (2008). Transparency and occlusion. In A. I. Basbaum, A. Kaneko, M. Shepherd, G. Westheimer, T.D. Albright, & R. Masland (Eds.), The senses: A comprehensive reference, Vol. 2, Vision II, pp. 239–244. San Diego: Academic Press.
Brainard, D., Brunt, W., & Speigle, M. (1997). Color constancy in the nearly natural image. I. Asymmetric matches. The Journal of the Optical Society of America, 14(9), 2091–2110.
Brainard, D., & Wandell, B. (1988). Classification measurement of color appearance. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, 29, 162.
Brown, D. (2014). Colour constancy and colour layering. Philosophers’ Imprint, 14(16), 1–31.
Byrne, A., & Hilbert, D. (2003). Colour realism and colour science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26, 3–64.
Casati, R. (2009). Are shadows transparent? An investigation on white, shadows and transparency in pictures. Res, 56, 329–335. My source is the Author Manuscript ijn_00171296, (2007). pp. 1–12.
Cohen, J. (2008). Colour constancy as counterfactual. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 86, 61–92.
Cohen, J. (2009). The red and the real: An essay on colour ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jameson, D., & Hurvich, L. (1989). Essay concerning color constancy. Annual Review of Psychology, 40, 1–22. In A. Byrne & D. R. Hilbert (Eds.), Readings in Colour, Vol. 2, The Sciene of Color, pp. 177–98. Cambridge Mass: MIT Press.
Khang, B.-G., & Zaidi, Q. (2002a). Accuracy of color scission for spectral transparencies. Journal of Vision, 2(6), 451–466S.
Khang, B.-G., & Zaidi, Q. (2002b). Cues and strategies for color constancy: Perceptual scission, image junctions and transformational color matching. Vision Research, 42(2), 211–226.
Kingdom, F. A. A. (2011). Lightness, brightness and transparency: A quarter century of new ideas, captivating demonstrations and unrelenting controversy. Vision Research, 51, 652–673.
Kitaoka, A. (2005). A new explanation of perceptual transparency connecting the X-junction contrast-polarity model with the luminance-based arithmetic model. Japanese Psychological Research, 47, 175–187.
Land, E. (1986). Recent advances in retinex theory. Vision Research, 26, 7–21. In A. Byrne & D. R. Hilbert (Eds.), Readings in Color, vol. 2, The Science of Color, pp. 143–160. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass.
Land, E., & McCann, J. (1971). Lightness and retinex theory. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 61, 1–11.
Metelli, F. (1974). The perception of transparency. Scientific American, 230(4), 91–98.
Shevell, S. K., & Kingdom, F. A. A. (2008). Color in complex scenes. The Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 143–166.
Wandell, B. (1989). Color constancy and the natural image. Physica Scripta, 39, 187–192. In A. Byrne & D. R. Hilbert (Eds.), Readings in Color, vol. 2, The Science of Color, pp. 161–175. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass.
Wollschläger, D., & Anderson, B. L. (2009). The role of layered scene representations in color appearance. Current Biology, 19, 430–435.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Jonathan Allan, Mazviita Chirimuuta, Jonathan Cohen, Wayne Wu, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Brown, D.H. Colour Layering and Colour Relationalism. Minds & Machines 25, 177–191 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-015-9363-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-015-9363-0