A glossy black jacket can still reveal curves. What cue gives them away?
Show answer & explanation
Answer: Specular highlights
Specular highlights ✓ — Right. Specular highlights are bright reflections on glossy surfaces, and vision research shows they can provide information about 3D shape. That means a black garment can still reveal curvature if its surface creates strong highlights. The key distinction is color versus surface reflection. Dark color reduces overall returned light, but glossy reflection can still draw shape-revealing streaks.
Darker pigment level — No. Darker pigment alone does not explain a bright streak that follows surface curvature. The cited highlight studies are about reflected highlight structure as a shape cue. A surface can be very dark in color yet still produce a highlight if it is glossy. So pigment darkness is not the cue that gives the curves away.
Matte surface scatter — Not quite. Matte surface scatter is the opposite family of cue from the glossy highlight named in the correct answer. The cited research supports specular highlights as shape information, not matte scatter as the curve-revealing mechanism here. The important lesson is that blackness and gloss are different visual properties. A black surface can hide or reveal depending on reflection structure.
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