The Real Effect of Warm-Cool Colors

Abstract

The phenomenon of warmer colors appearing nearer in depth to viewers than cooler colors has been studied extensively by psychologists and other vision researchers. The vast majority of these studies have asked human observers to view physically equidistant, colored stimuli and compare them for relative depth. However, in most cases, the stimuli presented were rather simple: straight colored lines, uniform color patches, point light sources, or symmetrical objects with uniform shading. Additionally, the colors used were typically highly saturated. Although such stimuli are useful in isolating and studying depth cues in certain contexts, they leave open the question of whether the human visual system operates similarly for realistic objects. This paper presents the results of an experiment designed to explore the color-depth relationship for realistic, colored objects with varying shading and contour