Color Opponencies in the system of the uniform color scales of the Optical Society of America

Many problems regarding color opponency are still unsolved. In this study the system of the uniform color scales of the Optical Society of America (OSA-UCS) is analyzed with the aim of obtaining answers to very general questions on color opponency. The perceptual color opponencies in the OSA-UCS system, represented by its coordinates ( j, g), appear to work in a mutually interacting way. On the hypothesis that such an interaction is due to a linear mixing of a pair of independent opponent mechanisms with scales satisfying a proper Weber fraction, three chromatic opponency functions are derived, whose sum is equal to zero. These functions are the logarithms of the ratios of two tristimulus values in a proper reference frame (called the ‘‘main reference frame’’) and therefore are antisymmetric and zero-degree homogeneous functions of these tristimulus values. Any pair of these three functions is a set of two independent functions. A new formula for color opponency in the OSA-UCS system is derived in which the perceptual color opponencies ( j, g) are written as products of the lightness by a proper linear mixing of any pair of the three chromatic opponency functions. All this is possible because the lattice of the OSA-UCS system is composed of geodesic lines. © 2004 Optical Society of America