Effect of Tone Curve and Size on Kansei Evaluation of High Dynamic Range Images - Comparison of Japanese and Chinese Observers

Abstract

The effects of tone curve and display size on Kansei evaluation of High Dynamic Range (HDR) images were investigated with Japanese and Chinese observers. Forty HDR images (5 tone curves x 4 sizes x 2 contents) were evaluated for Kansei impression using a semantic differential (SD) method with 16 Japanese and 16 Chinese observers with normal color vision. For each adjective, the evaluation value was plotted against the average lightness of the tone curve, and the resulting curves were divided into five types: monotonic increase (MI), monotonic decrease (MD), peak in the upper portion (PU), peak in the lower portion (PL), and flat (F). The results revealed size dependency in evaluations of "Easy to view" and "Difficult to view", which are PU and PL type adjectives, respectively. Size dependency was less prominent in the evaluations of adjectives categorized as MI, MD, and F types, suggesting that the influence of size is related to the effects of the tone curve. A factor analysis examining the evaluation data for both groups of observers extracted three factors for Japanese and two factors for Chinese observers. These results suggest that Kansei evaluation is more multilateral in Japanese observers than in Chinese observers.

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