The Experience of Light: Impact of Lighting Spectrum on Colour Quality and Atmosphere Perception in Museum Lighting

The study of the impact of the illumination spectrum on object color appearance–referred to as color rendition–and on lighting color quality has been an active research topic for several decades. Studies have shown that the worldwide standard, the CIE color rendering index (CRI), fails to accurately predict visual color rendition properties of many light sources, especially those with narrowband spectral features. In 2015, the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) has recommended a color rendition framework that addresses major inaccuracies of the CIE system. The IES system allows for a detailed, more accurate and unbiased specification of the color shifts associated with changes in light source spectrum. However, it is yet unclear how to interpret these shifts in terms of perceived lighting color quality aspects such as preference, naturalness vividness, harmony, etc. for museum lighting applications. Other unresolved issues are for example: What type of objects/colors contribute most to the overall perceived lighting quality and atmosphere? To what extent do the results depend on the specifics of the illuminated artworks? What is the typical observer variability that can be expected? The project will study these issues in an immersive environment in combination with modern technologies such as spectrally tunable sources with a large number of channels.