Title: The Perception and Misperception of Specular Surface Reflectance
Abstract: The amount and spectral content of the light reflected by most natural surfaces depends on the structure of the light field, the observer’s viewing position, and 3D surface geometry, particularly for specular (glossy) surfaces. A growing body of data has demonstrated that perceived surface gloss can vary as a function of its 3D shape [1Ho Y.X. Landy M.S. Maloney L.T. Conjoint measurement of gloss and surface texture.Psychol. Sci. 2008; 19: 196-204Crossref PubMed Scopus (156) Google Scholar, 2Nishida S. Shinya M. Use of image-based information in judgments of surface-reflectance properties.J. Opt. Soc. Am. A Opt. Image Sci. Vis. 1998; 15: 2951-2965Crossref PubMed Scopus (149) Google Scholar, 3Vangorp P. Laurijssen J. Dutré P. The influence of shape on the perception of material reflectance.ACM Trans. Graph. 2007; 26: 1-9Crossref Scopus (90) Google Scholar, 4Olkkonen M. Brainard D.H. Joint effects of illumination geometry and object shape in the perception of surface reflectance.i-Perception. 2011; 2: 1014-1034Crossref PubMed Scopus (56) Google Scholar, 5Wijntjes M.W. Pont S.C. Illusory gloss on Lambertian surfaces.J. Vis. 2010; 10: 13Crossref PubMed Scopus (61) Google Scholar] and its illumination field [6Doerschner K. Boyaci H. Maloney L.T. Estimating the glossiness transfer function induced by illumination change and testing its transitivity.J. Vis. 2010; 10 (1–9): 8PubMed Google Scholar, 7Fleming R.W. Dror R.O. Adelson E.H. Real-world illumination and the perception of surface reflectance properties.J. Vis. 2003; 3: 347-368Crossref PubMed Scopus (351) Google Scholar, 8Motoyoshi I. Matoba H. Variability in constancy of the perceived surface reflectance across different illumination statistics.Vision Res. 2012; 53: 30-39Crossref PubMed Scopus (57) Google Scholar, 9Olkkonen M. Brainard D.H. Perceived glossiness and lightness under real-world illumination.J. Vis. 2010; 10: 5Crossref PubMed Scopus (85) Google Scholar, 10Obein G. Knoblauch K. Viénot F. Difference scaling of gloss: nonlinearity, binocularity, and constancy.J. Vis. 2004; 4: 711-720Crossref PubMed Scopus (144) Google Scholar, 11Pont S.C. te Pas S.F. Material-illumination ambiguities and the perception of solid objects.Perception. 2006; 35: 1331-1350Crossref PubMed Scopus (65) Google Scholar, 12te Pas, S.F., and Pont, S.C. (2005). A comparison of material and illumination discrimination performance for real rough, real smooth and computer generated smooth spheres. Proceeding APGV ’05, 75–81.Google Scholar], but there is currently no explanation for these effects. Here, we show that the perception of gloss can be understood as a direct consequence of image properties that covary with surface geometry and the illumination field. We show that different illumination fields can generate qualitatively different patterns of interaction between perceived gloss and 3D surface geometry. Despite the complexity and variability of these interactions, we demonstrate that the perception (and misperception) of gloss is well predicted by the way that each illumination field modulates the size, contrast, sharpness, and depth of specular reflections. Our results provide a coherent explanation of the effects of extrinsic scene variables on perceived gloss [1Ho Y.X. Landy M.S. Maloney L.T. Conjoint measurement of gloss and surface texture.Psychol. Sci. 2008; 19: 196-204Crossref PubMed Scopus (156) Google Scholar, 2Nishida S. Shinya M. Use of image-based information in judgments of surface-reflectance properties.J. Opt. Soc. Am. A Opt. Image Sci. Vis. 1998; 15: 2951-2965Crossref PubMed Scopus (149) Google Scholar, 3Vangorp P. Laurijssen J. Dutré P. The influence of shape on the perception of material reflectance.ACM Trans. Graph. 2007; 26: 1-9Crossref Scopus (90) Google Scholar, 4Olkkonen M. Brainard D.H. Joint effects of illumination geometry and object shape in the perception of surface reflectance.i-Perception. 2011; 2: 1014-1034Crossref PubMed Scopus (56) Google Scholar, 5Wijntjes M.W. Pont S.C. Illusory gloss on Lambertian surfaces.J. Vis. 2010; 10: 13Crossref PubMed Scopus (61) Google Scholar, 6Doerschner K. Boyaci H. Maloney L.T. Estimating the glossiness transfer function induced by illumination change and testing its transitivity.J. Vis. 2010; 10 (1–9): 8PubMed Google Scholar, 7Fleming R.W. Dror R.O. Adelson E.H. Real-world illumination and the perception of surface reflectance properties.J. Vis. 2003; 3: 347-368Crossref PubMed Scopus (351) Google Scholar, 8Motoyoshi I. Matoba H. Variability in constancy of the perceived surface reflectance across different illumination statistics.Vision Res. 2012; 53: 30-39Crossref PubMed Scopus (57) Google Scholar, 9Olkkonen M. Brainard D.H. Perceived glossiness and lightness under real-world illumination.J. Vis. 2010; 10: 5Crossref PubMed Scopus (85) Google Scholar, 10Obein G. Knoblauch K. Viénot F. Difference scaling of gloss: nonlinearity, binocularity, and constancy.J. Vis. 2004; 4: 711-720Crossref PubMed Scopus (144) Google Scholar, 11Pont S.C. te Pas S.F. Material-illumination ambiguities and the perception of solid objects.Perception. 2006; 35: 1331-1350Crossref PubMed Scopus (65) Google Scholar, 12te Pas, S.F., and Pont, S.C. (2005). A comparison of material and illumination discrimination performance for real rough, real smooth and computer generated smooth spheres. Proceeding APGV ’05, 75–81.Google Scholar, 13Wendt G. Faul F. Ekroll V. Mausfeld R. Disparity, motion, and color information improve gloss constancy performance.J. Vis. 2010; 10: 7Crossref PubMed Scopus (70) Google Scholar], and our methods suggest a general technique for assessing the role of specific image properties in modulating our visual experience of material properties.