The Unbearable Lightness of Being White

In this article I explore the relationship between feelings of superiority, White privilege, White guilt, and a denied White racial identity and how these dynamics are enacted in therapy between White therapist and client. I discuss the concepts of White privilege, White guilt, color-blind racial ideology, and the invisibility of Whiteness and their importance in understanding problems in White identity development. Throughout this discussion I draw implications for clinical practice and training. I conclude by suggesting a process for identifying the dynamics of privilege and power in cross-cultural interactions through the use of self-reflection.     

The Unbearable Lightness of Bringing into Being

In this paper it is argued that the overwhelming majority of gamete donors are amongst those who treat decisions about bringing children into existence too lightly. The argument proceeds through the following stages.
1) People have a presumptive responsibility for rearing children who result from their gametes. 2) The responsibility people have to rear their offspring is a responsibility not merely to provide a minimum of care, but also to attend to the details of nurturing children and fostering their flourishing. 3) Gamete donors transfer their responsibilities for raising their genetic offspring to those who will raise it. 4) Responsibilities for rearing children are weighty ones. 5) Treating weighty responsibilities too lightly is morally wrong. 6) Gamete donors' decisions to transfer their responsibilities for rearing their offspring to others, almost always involves treating parental responsibilities too lightly. 7) Therefore, gamete donation is almost always morally wrong.     

Lightness induction revisited

Lightness induction is the classical visual phenomenon whereby the lightness of an object is shown to depend on its immediate surround. Despite the long history of its study, lightness induction has not yet been coherently and satisfactorily explained in all its variety. The two main theories that compete to explain it descend (i) from H von Helmholtz, who believed that lightness induction originates from some central mechanisms that take into account the whole viewing situation, with particular stress upon the apparent illumination of the object; and (ii) E Hering who argued in favour of more peripheral sensory mechanisms based on local luminance contrast. The balance between these theories has recently been shifted towards Helmholtz's position by E H Adelson who has provided additional evidence that lightness induction depends on perceptual interpretation and, particularly, on apparent transparency. I challenge Adelson's conclusions by introducing modified versions of his tile pattern that use luminance gradients. In the first of these new demonstrations there is a strong lightness induction even though no apparent transparency is experienced. In the second there is a clear impression of transparent strips, yet no lightness induction is present. And the third shows that breaking up the Adelson tile pattern, while it affects neither the impression of transparency nor the type of grey-level junctions, makes the lightness-induction effect vanish. This implies that Adelson's illusion can be accounted for by neither local contrast, nor the apparent transparency, nor the type of grey-level junctions. Presented here is an alternative look at lightness induction as a phenomenon of the pictorial (as contrasted to natural) vision, which rests on the lightness-shadow invariance, much as Gregory's 'inappropriate constancy scaling' theory of geometrical illusions rests on the apparent size-distance invariance.     

Lightness compression and hue changes

Two experiments were performed to relate the Bezold-Brücke (B-B) and lightness compression effects. The first used a calibrated screen to present an achromatic luminance staircase. In addition, it reproduced, the methodology and the essential aspects the lightness compression effect discovered by Cataliotti and Gilchrist (1995). That is, observers perceived a truncated grey scale (from white to medium grey) when the staircase was the only stimulation in the near background (Gelb condition), but not when presented on a Mondrian background, because of the high articulation level provided by this background. Experiment 1 design also included two other backgrounds that produced a partial compression effect. In Experiment 2, two chromatic staircases were used. Employing a naming task, changes in hue perception were only observed for the susceptible staircase. The observed changes were of two types. First, for the full staircase presentations, a Gelb background produced maximum lightness compression (more similarity in the lightness of the staircase stimuli) and, also, a minimum B-B effect (fewer differences in hue). Second, only for the Gelb condition, there were changes in the hue of the lowest luminance staircase stimuli depending on the staircase extension. Results are discussed in the framework of the anchoring theory of lightness perception.     

Lightness constancy and illumination discounting

Contrary to the implication of the term "lightness constancy", asymmetric lightness matching has never been found to be perfect unless the scene is highly articulated (i.e., contains a number of different reflectances). Also, lightness constancy has been found to vary for different observers, and an effect of instruction (lightness vs. brightness) has been reported. The elusiveness of lightness constancy presents a great challenge to visual science; we revisit these issues in the following experiment, which involved 44 observers in total. The stimuli consisted of a large sheet of black paper with a rectangular spotlight projected onto the lower half and 40 squares of various shades of grey printed on the upper half. The luminance ratio at the edge of the spotlight was 25, while that of the squares varied from 2 to 16. Three different instructions were given to observers: They were asked to find a square in the upper half that (i) looked as if it was made of the same paper as that on which the spotlight fell (lightness match), (ii) had the same luminance contrast as the spotlight edge (contrast match), or (iii) had the same brightness as the spotlight (brightness match). Observers made 10 matches of each of the three types. Great interindividual variability was found for all three types of matches. In particular, the individual Brunswik ratios were found to vary over a broad range (from .47 to .85). That is, lightness matches were found to be far from veridical. Contrast matches were also found to be inaccurate, being on average, underestimated by a factor of 3.4. Articulation was found to essentially affect not only lightness, but contrast and brightness matches as well. No difference was found between the lightness and luminance contrast matches. While the brightness matches significantly differed from the other matches, the difference was small. Furthermore, the brightness matches were found to be subject to the same interindividual variability and the same effect of articulation. This leads to the conclusion that inexperienced observers are unable to estimate both the brightness and the luminance contrast of the light reflected from real objects lit by real lights. None of our observers perceived illumination edges purely as illumination edges: A partial Gelb effect ("partial illumination discounting") always took place. The lightness inconstancy in our experiment resulted from this partial illumination discounting. We propose an account of our results based on the two-dimensionality of achromatic colour. We argue that large interindividual variations and the effect of articulation are caused by the large ambiguity of luminance ratios in the stimulus displays used in laboratory conditions.     

Lightness constancy through a veiling luminance

Observers were asked to select samples from a Munsell chart to match the lightness of seven identified surfaces in an outdoor scene they were shown. A separate group that was given the same task but viewed the same scene covered with a veiling luminance equal in intensity to the highest luminance in the scene selected almost the same matches. The same lightness constancy results were obtained using an abstract laboratory display to rule out memory color. These results challenge ratio and contrast theories because a veiling luminance, by adding a constant luminance to every poing in the image, dramatically alters luminance ratios. Lightness constancy was not obtained, however, when these three-dimensional real-world-type displays were replaced by a flat, Mondrian-type display consisting of surface grays from white to black, whether or not colored regions were present in the display; lightness matches were consistent with ratio predictions both with and without the veil.     

Lightness depends on immediately prior experience

The lightness hangover illusion is an unusually robust, long-lasting, prior-experience-based lightness effect. The effect occurs in the Mondrian world, a miniature chamber with interior walls covered with dark gray to black patches. The lightest patch in this scene, physically dark gray, looks white. When real whites and light grays are added to the scene, all the patches darken, but at an unusually slow rate. For several seconds, the white patches look self-luminous and the other patches continue to look very light. The luminosity fades and the other patches darken only after 2 min. We tested three possible explanations for this illusion: retinal adaptation, lightness persistence, and anchor persistence. The results clearly support anchor persistence, which is caused by the presence of steady patches, surfaces that retain their luminance values across scenes. The data also show that the size of the illusion varies directly with the number of these steady patches.     

Lightness of grays: Effects of Background reflectance

The influence of background reflectance was determined for lightness judgments relative to white of small gray patches. The effect of prior stimulus-context was avoided by considering only first judgments. It was found that lightness was proportional to the square root of reflectance when the background was a gray darker than the stimulus, but not when the background was lighter gray or white. In general, a small difference in reflectance between the stimulus and and background produced the same effect as a larger difference.     

The Perks of Being Relational: Reviewing The Perks of Being a Wallflower

This article reviews The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Halfon, Smith, Malkovich, & Chbosky, 2012), a coming-of-age film about 3 high school students attempting to survive school, find themselves, and connect with others. The authors provide a synopsis of various portions of the film and identify important aspects of relational-cultural theory (RCT) within its plot, such as growth-fostering relationships, controlling images, and relational images. Various characters’ plotlines are discussed in relation to what RCT identifies as paramount tenets of human development and mental health. The authors also briefly discuss other counseling issues touched on within the film (i.e., affectional identity, sexual assault, and relational violence).     

Lightness, equivalent backgrounds, and anchoring

Observers compared two center/surround configurations haploscopically. One configuration consisted of a standard surface surrounded by two, three, or four surfaces, each with a different luminance. The other configuration consisted of a comparison surface surrounded by a single annulus that varied in luminance. Center surfaces always had the same luminance but only appeared to have the same lightness with certain annuli (equivalent backgrounds). For most displays, the luminance needed to obtain an equivalent background was close to the highest luminance in the standard surround configuration. Models based on the space-average luminance or the space-average contrast of the standard surround configuration yielded poorer fits. Implications for computational models of lightness and for candidate solutions to the anchoring problem are discussed.     

Lightness contrast in CRT and paper-and-illuminant displays

The increased use of CRT monitors for displaying and controlling stimuli in studies of surface color poses problems of comparability with data obtained with traditional paper-and-illuminant methods. A review of comparable studies using the two methodologies revealed that CRT studies tend to report larger contrast effects. To investigate factors that may be responsible for this difference, simultaneous lightness contrast was measured using both CRT and paper-and-illuminant presentations. The spatial distribution of luminance in the whole field of view and the visual angles subtended by the displays were controlled. The CRT presentation yielded contrast effects twice as big as those measured for a paper surface in a homogeneously illuminated room. However, a paper display under Gelb lighting yielded almost exactly the same effect size as that measured in the CRT presentation. These results demonstrate that contrast effects in both modes of presentation are affected by the spatial distribution of luminance beyond the basic experimental stimuli.     

Lightness of an object under two illumination levels

Anchoring theory (Gilchrist et al, 1999 Psychological Review 106 795-834) predicts a wide range of lightness errors, including failures of constancy in multi-illumination scenes and a long list of well-known lightness illusions seen under homogeneous illumination. Lightness values are computed both locally and globally and then averaged together. Local values are computed within a given region of homogeneous illumination. Thus, for an object that extends through two different illumination levels, anchoring theory produces two values, one for the patch in brighter illumination and one for the patch in dimmer illumination. Observers can give matches for these patches separately, but they can also give a single match for the whole object. Anchoring theory in its current form is unable to predict these object matches. We report eight experiments in which we studied the relationship between patch matches and object matches. The results show that the object match represents a compromise between the match for the patch in the field of highest illumination and the patch in the largest field of illumination. These two principles are parallel to the rules found for anchoring lightness: highest luminance rule and area rule.