Construct · 3 fields · 6 citations

Where does chroma collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one word, three constructs Nearest construct by meaninghuecompare the meanings
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Every construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to chroma is hue.

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chroma3 CONSTRUCTSMunsell chromaMUNSELL · COLORFULNESSChroma (video)VALENSI · COLOR SIGNALTone chromaBACHEM · PITCH CLASS

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1905Munsell chroma1945Chroma (video)1950Tone chroma
2026

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Color science

A color's colorfulness relative to gray

In color science, chroma is how colorful something looks compared with a neutral gray of the same lightness: it is the distance a color sits out from the gray axis. Munsell's 1905 A Color Notation introduced chroma as one of three ordered dimensions of color appearance, alongside hue and value (lightness), so that any color could be named by its place in a three-dimensional solid. Newhall, Nickerson, and Judd's 1943 report for the Optical Society of America then respaced the Munsell colors on measured data so that equal steps of chroma would look equally different. This referent is a perceived property of a surface or light, not the color-carrying part of a video signal or the repeating quality of a musical note.[1][2]

Unit
One color's colorfulness relative to a neutral gray of equal lightness, read as steps out from the gray axis
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Placed on the Munsell chroma scale by visual matching against reference chips, or computed from tristimulus values in a color-appearance model

Video engineering

The color component of a picture signal

In video engineering, chroma is the part of a picture signal that carries color, sent separately from luma, the part that carries brightness. Valensi's 1945 patent System of television in colors (filed 1939) set out the idea of splitting a color image into a brightness signal plus a second signal for its color, so that one broadcast could serve both color and black-and-white receivers. Poynton's 2003 Digital Video and HDTV gives the modern definition, in which chroma is the color-difference information modulated onto a subcarrier or stored as its own channels. This referent is an engineered component of an image signal, not a color's perceived colorfulness or the pitch quality of a tone.[3][4]

Unit
The color-difference component of a picture signal, described by signal amplitude and bandwidth
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Read as the amplitude and phase of the color subcarrier, or as the values of the color-difference channels in a digital video stream

Music cognition

The pitch-class quality that repeats each octave

In music cognition, chroma is the quality of a tone that names its place within the octave, so that every C shares one chroma no matter how high or low it is played. Bachem's 1950 Tone height and tone chroma as two different pitch qualities separated this repeating quality from tone height, which is simply how high or low a tone sounds. Shepard's 1964 Circularity in judgments of relative pitch then modeled pitch as a helix, with height running up the axis and chroma running around the circle, and built tones that seem to rise forever. This referent is a perceived property of musical pitch, not a color's colorfulness or the color part of a video signal.[5][6]

Unit
One tone's pitch-class quality, the position within the octave that repeats every octave
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Inferred from listeners' judgments of pitch similarity and octave equivalence, and modeled as an angle around the pitch-class circle

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Nearby collisions

pitch3 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, three constructshue1 fields · 1 citationsanchor · a standalone constructsaturation4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructs

References

  1. Munsell, A. H. (1905). A color notation. Geo. H. Ellis Co.
  2. Newhall, S. M., Nickerson, D., & Judd, D. B. (1943). Final report of the O.S.A. subcommittee on the spacing of the Munsell colors. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 33(7), 385–418. https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSA.33.000385
  3. Valensi, G. (1945). System of television in colors (U.S. Patent No. 2,375,966). U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
  4. Poynton, C. (2003). Digital video and HDTV: Algorithms and interfaces. Morgan Kaufmann. ISBN 9781558607927
  5. Bachem, A. (1950). Tone height and tone chroma as two different pitch qualities. Acta Psychologica, 7, 80–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-6918(50)90004-7
  6. Shepard, R. N. (1964). Circularity in judgments of relative pitch. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 36(12), 2346–2353. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1919362

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