Read on to find out more about our main areas of research and key findings

We are The Sussex Colour Group, a Research Lab based at the University of Sussex in the UK. We investigate human perception of colour, light and other visual properties. We use a range of methods in our research, including infant and child testing, psychophysics, cross-cultural fieldwork, altered-reality and neuroimaging. Our research has been generously supported by funding from the European Research Council, UKRI and from a number of industrial partnerships and consultancies.

We are particularly focused on understanding the development of visual perception. We investigate how infants and children see, think and learn about colour and other visual properties, and the process by which visual perception develops. This gives us insight into children’s perceptual and cognitive development, and into infants and children's' response to the world around them. Understanding how visual perception develops also gives insight into how it works in its mature form. Our infant studies are conducted in the Sussex Baby Lab (which is co-led by Anna Franklin & Alice Skelton).

We are also focussed on understanding the neural and perceptual mechanisms of human visual perception. We want to understand what is ‘under the hood’ of human visual perception – to understand what perceptual processes enable us to perceive, think, like and talk about visual properties, and how those perceptual processes work. We also ask questions about the role of environment, culture and experience in visual perception. This enables us to contribute to broader debate in the cognitive sciences on topics such as the efficient coding of our visual system and the relativity of perception.

Colour Perception, Categorisation & Constancy

Much of the Sussex Colour Group's early research investigated the origins and nature of colour categorisation, supported by a European Research Council Starting Grant to Anna Franklin (Project CATEGORIES, 2012–2018). Our studies provide converging evidence that infants can categorise colour (e.g., Skelton et al., PNAS, 2017) and challenge Whorfian claims that colour naming affects early sensory processes (e.g., He et al., JOSA, 2014).

Our developmental work has also investigated the development of colour constancy and how the acquisition of colour terms helps children perceive object colour as constant under changing illumination (Rogers et al., JECP, 2020). We have developed ColourSpot, a gamified psychophysical colour-calibrated iPad app which detects colour vision deficiency in children as young as 4 (Tang et al., 2022, BRM).

Using fMRI, we found that the middle frontal gyrus responds categorically to colour, while the visual cortex encodes perceptual similarity (Bird et al., PNAS, 2014). An analysis of the 7T Natural Scenes Dataset has also identified colour-biased regions in the ventral visual pathway that are selective for images of food (Pennock et al., Current Biology, 2023).

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Environmental Calibration of Perception: Scene Statistics, Illumination & Visual Diet

With an ERC Consolidator Grant (Project COLOURMIND, 2018–2025, Anna Franklin, with Jenny Bosten), we investigated how visual perception calibrates to the statistical regularities of the environment across multiple timescales. Our interdisciplinary team developed innovative methods for measuring people’s “visual diet” (the colour and spatial characteristics of the scenes and illumination they experience daily) using colour- and spatially-calibrated head-mounted cameras, hyperspectral imaging, and worn spectroradiometers.

We measured visual diets across diverse environments, including remote Ecuadorian rainforest (with Simeon Floyd & Asifa Majid), urban settings, and regions above and below the Arctic Circle (with Bruno Laeng & Mikolaj Hernik). Psychophysical tests reveal that visual perception varies with environmental exposure: for example, we found group differences in sensitivity to hue that were consistent with perceptual learning from the environment (Skelton et al., Proc. Roy. Soc. B, 2024). We have also probed the limits of adaptation to chromatic scene statistics with a series of psychophysical experiments in the lab (e.g., Wozniak et al., under review), and an Altered-Reality study suggests that the visual system cannot adapt to a hue-rotated world (Konakanchi et al., under review).

Developmentally, we find that even infants’ sensitivity to colour reflects the statistical regularities of natural scenes (Skelton et al., Dev Sci, 2023). Related work shows that measures such as fractal dimension and edge orientation entropy predict how long infants look at art, natural scenes, building facades, and abstract patterns (McAdams et al., 2023, JOV; McAdams et al., 2025, PLOS One). This gives insight into the statistical regularities and complexity that the immature infant visual system is capable of processing. We have also generated a dataset of over 200,000 egocentric images from head-mounted cameras worn by infants and caregivers whilst going about daily life, revealing differences in their visual diets that shed light on how experience shapes visual development (McAdams et al., under review).

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Aesthetic Preference, Visual Discomfort, and Visual Design

A further strand of our research investigates the aesthetics of visual experience. Our findings support aspects of Palmer and Schloss’s Ecological Valence Theory that colour preference relates to the valence of associated objects, while revealing gender and cultural variations (Taylor et al., 2012, Psych Bull Rev; Al-Rasheed et al., 2022, Frontiers in Psych). Our investigation of the colour preferences and associations of the Himba people have challenged the claim that colour preferences are universal (Taylor et al., 2013, JEP:Gen). We have also conducted cross-cultural studies in rural and urban Ecuador and above and below the acrtic circle in Norway, and find links between visual preference and visual diet, and effects of geographical latitude on visual discomfort (Skelton et al., Proc. Roy. Soc. B, 2024).

Using fMRI, we have demonstrated that the posterior midline cortex (precuneus, posterior cingulate, cuneus) responds to colour preference even during passive viewing, implicating the default mode network in aesthetic processing (Racey et al., 2019, NeuroImage).

We have further investigated diversity in aesthetic preference by documenting and modelling the colour preferences of dichromat observers (Alvaro et al., 2015, PNAS). Current projects build on our earlier work on colour and luminance discrimination in autism (e.g., Franklin et al., 2010, Dev Sci), extending this to examine visual preference and discomfort in relation to colour, light, and lighting, with a particular focus on neurodiversity. One project involves an interdisciplinary European network of researchers, funded by the Daylight Academy. Other current research is investigating lived neurodiverse experience of colour, light and other visual properties using participatory methods, with John Maule, Zhe Gong, Clare Davies and Sophie Anns. We aim for our research to provide an evidence base for inclusive design guidelines.

We are also investigating whether early sensory biases form a foundation for aesthetic experience. So far, we find relationships between infant looking and adult aesthetic judgements for some stimuli (e.g., colour, van Gogh landscapes, building facades), but not others (e.g., natural scenes, book images). These findings inform our understanding of the sensory component of aesthetics (e.g., McAdams et al., 2023, JOV; McAdams et al., 2025, PlosOne). We have also been working with companies and organisations who design for, or work with infants, weaving the methods and findings of our research on infant visual perception into the design of early years books, products, theatre performance, and art gallery and museum provision for infants.

Photo by Zalfa Imani on Unsplash

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