Extended Realities: A New Era of Colour Perception Research

• Applicant: Dr. Raquel Gil Rodriguez
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 576063099

One of the main goals of the project is to understand whether full visual immersion in virtual environments improves colour constancy more than simply increasing the field of view. To explore this, the research compares colour perception in VR headsets with that on large, high-resolution HDR monitors. Another key objective is to study how colour constancy behaves in more complex and realistic lighting conditions. This includes environments illuminated by multiple light sources, such as a combination of natural daylight and artificial indoor lighting, which better reflects everyday visual experiences. The project also examines the role of interaction. It investigates whether actively engaging with objects—such as touching or manipulating them—affects how people perceive colour. These experiments focus on how bodily involvement and hand presence may contribute to stable colour perception. In addition, the research evaluates how different experimental tasks and interfaces influence colour constancy results. By comparing several common task types, the aim is to identify the most effective and user-friendly methods for studying colour perception in immersive environments. A further objective is to assess how well virtual environments replicate real-world colour perception. Experiments are designed to match virtual and real scenes as closely as possible, allowing the team to measure the accuracy and limitations of VR in simulating natural visual experience. Finally, the project will develop a database of 3D object models with highly accurate colour and lighting information. These models will support all other experiments and provide a valuable resource for future work in both human perception research and computational imaging.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants