Sound Reproduction

CHAPTER 11

Adaptation

“We humans adapt to the world around us in many, if not all, dimensions of perception— temperature, luminance level, ambient smells, colors and sounds, etc. When we take photographs under fluorescent or incandescent lighting or outdoors in the shade or direct sunshine, we immediately are aware of color balance shifts—greenish, orangish, bluish, etc. Yet, in daily life, we automatically adjust for these and see each other and the things around us as if under constant illumination. We adapt to low and high light levels without thinking. There are limits—very colored lighting gets our attention, we cannot look into the sun, or see in the dark, but over a range of typical circumstances we do remarkably well at maintaining ...