Research Objectives: Use gaze-contingent rendering in immersive virtual reality to study color awareness during naturalistic viewing.
Project Description: Professor Cohen conducted this research study (partially supported by National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Award) in collaboration with colleagues from MIT and Dartmouth. The study used recent head-mounted VR equipment to determine how much color observers perceive during naturalistic visual experiences. All testing took place at Dartmouth College and Amherst College, and 40 of the 178 participants were from the latter. As part of this study, Prof. Cohen trained Amherst college students to use these VR tools and learn research methodologies.
The results showed that during active, naturalistic viewing conditions, participants usually failed to notice changes in the color proportion of imagery, indicating that our perception of a rich, colorful visual world is largely incorrect.
Academic Technology Tools: The VR environment was built using the Unity platform and viewed using an Oculus Rift head-mounted display.
Sample displays from each of the four critical trial conditions, with different portions of images colored vs. grayscale, 10° to 32.5°, along with color awareness measurements.
Reference: Cohen, M. A., Botch, T. L., & Robertson, C. E. (2020). The limits of color awareness during active, real-world vision. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(24), 13821-13827.
