Print Email Facebook Twitter Time-of-day perception in paintings Title Time-of-day perception in paintings Author Yu, C. (TU Delft Human Information Communication Design) Van Zuijlen, Mitchell J.P. (Kyoto University) Spoiala, C. (TU Delft Human Information Communication Design) Pont, S.C. (TU Delft Human Information Communication Design) Wijntjes, M.W.A. (TU Delft Human Information Communication Design) Hurlbert, Anya (Newcastle University) Date 2024 Abstract The spectral shape, irradiance, direction, and diffuseness of daylight vary regularly throughout the day. The variations in illumination and their effect on the light reflected from objects may in turn provide visual information as to the time of day. We suggest that artists' color choices for paintings of outdoor scenes might convey this information and that therefore the time of day might be decoded from the colors of paintings. Here we investigate whether human viewers' estimates of the depicted time of day in paintings correlate with their image statistics, specifically chromaticity and luminance variations. We tested time-of-day perception in 17th- to 20th-century Western European paintings via two online rating experiments. In Experiment 1, viewers' ratings from seven time choices varied significantly and largely consistently across paintings but with some ambiguity between morning and evening depictions. Analysis of the relationship between image statistics and ratings revealed correlations with the perceived time of day: higher "morningness" ratings associated with higher brightness, contrast, and saturation and darker yellow/brighter blue hues; "eveningness" with lower brightness, contrast, and saturation and darker blue/brighter yellow hues. Multiple linear regressions of extracted principal components yielded a predictive model that explained 76% of the variance in time-of-day perception. In Experiment 2, viewers rated paintings as morning or evening only; rating distributions differed significantly across paintings, and image statistics predicted people's perceptions. These results suggest that artists used different color palettes and patterns to depict different times of day, and the human visual system holds consistent assumptions about the variation of natural light depicted in paintings. Subject OA-Fund TU Delft To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:0426f78d-5df0-4fe0-8f71-6fc5ead33d00 DOI https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.24.1.1 ISSN 1534-7362 Source Journal of vision, 24 (1), 1-27 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2024 C. Yu, Mitchell J.P. Van Zuijlen, C. Spoiala, S.C. Pont, M.W.A. Wijntjes, Anya Hurlbert Files PDF i1534-7362-24-1-1_1703768 ... .12946.pdf 16.79 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:0426f78d-5df0-4fe0-8f71-6fc5ead33d00/datastream/OBJ/view