Chromaticity-Confusion Contours in a Complex Viewing Situation*

This experiment measured confusion contours for 58 standard colors distributed throughout the CIE constant-luminance diagram. Matches were made to these standards from an assortment of 342 heterogeneous colors arranged in a display which presented 171 of them simultaneously. The viewing conditions approximate those found in certain complex display situations. Twenty subjects were used in the experiment. Each subject was required to indicate those colors on the display board which provided satisfactory matches for each of the standard colors. Contours on the CIE diagram are drawn to show the percentage of times various chromaticities were confused. From these contours we have selected colors which can be discriminated with high levels of accuracy and so are suitable for coding qualitative and quantitative information. In general, the contours follow trends suggested by extrapolation from precise threshold data.