Sensory and Cognitive Contributions of Color to the Recognition of Natural Scenes

Abstract:  Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Results and discussion Recognition of natural scenes A delayed match-to-sample task was used to test the role of color vision in the recognition of briefly presented images of natural scenes (Figure 1). Half of the images were presented in color, the other half in black and white. In order to differentiate between different contributions of color to recognition, half of those images presented in color were tested in black and white (the CB condition), the other half in color (CC). Half of the images presented in black and white were tested in color (BC), the other half in black and white (BB). Consequently, if the target is presented in color, but then tested in black and white, the color information per se cannot be used in the decision. It can only be used during the early sensory processes that lead to the encoding of the image [9], such as edge detection, texture segmentation or figure--ground segre