Study On The Color Discrimination Variability Of The Observers With Normal Color Vision

Human color vision was characterized by the standard colorimetric observer, which is a set of three color matching functions(CMFs). But, the CIE standard colorimetric observer was an appropriate representation of the average color normal human observer, and the individual differences were neglected. In reality, large variations in observers’ color discrimination exist among color-normal populations. Especially, with the development of display technologies, the display industry has begun a migration towards higher color gamut devices driven by LED, OLED, quantum dot and laser technologies capable of generating near monochromatic color stimuli in the traditional red, green, blue three-channel paradigm. However, the use of spectrally narrow primaries energy-saving efficient light sources and display devices poses a risk to the consistency of visual experience amongst a group of normal color observers.In order to compare the influences on the observers’ color discrimination variability with normal color vision under a variety of viewing conditions, the cross-media color matching experiments were carried out based on the monitor and printed color samples. The spectral power distribution, illumination and correlated color temperature of lighting sources, the displays with different primary spectra and visual fields were selected and 9 groups of experiments were carried out. The observer variability(MCDM), observer metamerism magnitude(OM) and observer metamerism variability(OMvar) were used to quantify observers’ color discrimination variability. Meanwhile, the coefficient of variation(CV) was used to quantify the variation degree of indices, and evaluate the significant difference induced by observation condition.The results showed that the observers’ color discrimination variability was decreased under the observation condition of lighting source with high illumination and high corrected color temperature, and vice versa. The spectral power distribution of the lighting sources had some effect on the observers color perception. However, there are no clearly law of effect for visual field and displays’ primary colors because of the inconsistency of three indices. But each of indices could be selected according to the practice requirement.