Effect of viewing environments on perceived display neutral point

Opt Express. 2023 Dec 4;31(25):41445-41457. doi: 10.1364/OE.505174.

Abstract

In this study, the influences of ambient chromaticity, ambient luminance, and display luminance on the perceived neutral point of a display were systematically investigated using 25 experimental settings. The results show that the surround ratio, i.e., the ratio of the ambient luminance to the display luminance, had a greater effect on the display neutral point perception than the absolute intensity of each factor. As the surround ratio decreased, indicating that the display luminance was higher than the ambient luminance, the perceived display neutral point changed from the adapted white to the neutral point in the darkroom condition (corresponding to a surround ratio of zero) at approximately 7,200 K. When the surround ratio exceeded 1.0, the neutral point of the display gradually shifted toward specific levels. The correlated color temperatures of the perceived display neutral points converged to 5,000 and 5,900 K under ambient lighting conditions of 3,000 and 5,000 K, respectively.