A spectral theory of color perception

J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis. 2009 Dec;26(12):2488-502. doi: 10.1364/JOSAA.26.002488.

Abstract

The paper adopts the philosophical stance that colors are real and can be identified with spectral models based on the photoreceptor signals. A statistical setting represents spectral profiles as probability density functions. This permits the use of analytic tools from the field of information geometry to determine a new kind of color space and structure deriving therefrom. In particular, the metric of the color space is shown to be the Fisher information matrix. A maximum entropy technique for spectral modeling is proposed that takes into account measurement noise. Theoretical predictions provided by our approach are compared with empirical colorfulness and color similarity data.