Sequential color breakup measured with induced saccades

The commercial success of color sequential displays is limited by the fact that people perceive multiple color images during pursuit and saccadic eye movements. We conducted a psychophysical experiment to quantify visibility of these color artifacts for different saccadic speeds, display background brightness, and target size. An Infocus sequential-color projector was placed behind a projection screen to simulate a normal desktop display. Saccadic eye movements were induced by requiring subjects to recognize text targets displayed at two different screen locations in rapid succession. The speed of saccadic movements was varied by manipulating the distance between the two target locations. A white bar, either with or without a yellow and red color fringe on the right edge, was displayed as subjects moved their eyes for the text recognition task. The two versions of the white bar will not be distinguishable if color break-up is present, thus performance of this task can be used as a measure of color break-up. The visibility of sequential color breakup decreases with background intensity and size of the white target, and increases with saccadic speed.