A paper by Son-san, who completed his doctoral program last academic year, has been published in Lighting Research & Technology. The study examined how visual performance is affected after a sudden decrease in background luminance. Specifically, it showed that response times for target detection become longer after such a decrease, and that this effect is comparable for both luminance-defined and color-defined targets. These findings provide important insight into basic visual functions under conditions in which ambient illumination changes abruptly.

• Minwoo Son, Takehiro Nagai: Comparison of simple reaction times across colour and luminance conditions under an abrupt decrease in background luminance. Lighting Research & Technology, 14771535261442940, 2026. (https://doi.org/10.1177/14771535261442940)

From May 15 to 20, Ph.D. students Nakajima-kun, Hanada-kun, and A/Prof Nagai presented their work at the Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting, held in Florida, USA. Although the results had already been summarized before the meeting, the conference provided a valuable opportunity to meet new colleagues and gain further experience presenting research internationally. It was also refreshing to experience the lively atmosphere characteristic of academic conferences in the United States. We were also able to do a little sightseeing in Florida for the first time in a while, which made the trip a good opportunity to get back into the rhythm of international conferences.

• Kenta Nakajima & Takehiro Nagai: The impact of temporal attitudes on physical and affective material impressions.

• Ikuto Hanada & Takehiro Nagai: The possible role of real-world color distribution rarity in aesthetic preference for abstract paintings: A machine-learning approach.

• Takehiro Nagai, Ruka Watanabe, & Juno Kim: Material perceptual space for translucent objects: a comparison between australian and japanese observers.

At the end of the 2025 academic year, Son-san from the doctoral program, along with Wang-san, Oda-kun, Kawahara-kun, Kinoshita-kun, and Miyoshi-kun from the master's program, completed their degrees and moved on to new stages of their careers. We wish them every success in the years ahead. Son-san will continue research in a closely related field, so we hope to have opportunities to meet again at future conferences. At the same time, a new academic year has begun, and our lab is pleased to welcome Ito-san, Omiya-kun, and Matsuda-san as new first-year master's students. With these new members, the lab is entering a fresh new phase, and we look forward to the year ahead.

A paper by our PhD candidate Killian Duay has been published in PLOS ONE. Previous studies examining how certain colors appear unusually bright or unnatural depending on the color distribution of a scene have typically relied on simple color patches. Killian’s experiments demonstrate that the same phenomenon also occurs in more realistic images, such as photographs of flowers. These findings provide important insights for color representation in emerging technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Killian is currently studying abroad in France. We wish him continued success as he pursues his research there.

• Killian Duay, & Takehiro Nagai: Optimal colors can predict luminosity thresholds in natural scenes. PLOS ONE. 21(3):e0343984. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0343984.