Luminance Contrast Perception in Killer Whales (<i>Orcinus orca</i>).

ABSTRACT: Cetaceans are highly adapted to the underwater environment, which is very different from the terrestrial environment. For cetaceans with neither high visual acuity nor color vision, contrast may be an important cue for visual object recognition, even in the underwater environment. Contrast is defined as the difference in luminance between an object and its background and is known to be perceived as enhanced by the luminance contrast illusion in humans. The aim of this study was to experimentally investigate whether the enhancement of contrast by the luminance contrast illusion could be observed in killer whales. Luminance discrimination tasks were performed on two captive killer whales, which were required to compare the luminance of two targets presented in monitors through an underwater

SUBMITTER: Santa A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11939218 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature