Statistical Properties of Gray Color Categorization: Asymptotics of Psychometric Function

TL;DR

This paper investigates the statistical properties of gray color categorization, analyzing psychometric functions and decision times to understand mechanisms of categorical perception of shades of gray.

Contribution

It introduces an experimental setup and analyzes asymptotics of psychometric functions and decision times for gray categorization, providing insights into perceptual mechanisms.

Findings

Asymptotics of psychometric functions were characterized.

Decision times vary with shade brightness.

Plausible mechanisms of categorical perception are proposed.

Abstract

The results of our experiments on categorical perception of different shades of gray are reported. A special color generator was created for conducting the experiments on categorizing a random sequence of colors into two classes, light-gray and dark-gray. The collected data are analyzed based on constructing (i) the asymptotics of the corresponding psychometric functions and (ii) the mean decision time in categorizing a given shade of gray depending on the shade brightness (shade number). Conclusions about plausible mechanisms governing categorical perception, at least for the analyzed system, are drawn.