Psychophysical experiments were conducted to assess unique hues on a CRT display for a large sample of colour-normal observers (n = 185). These data were then used to evaluate the most commonly used colour appearance model, CIECAM02, by transforming the CIEXYZ tristimulus values of the unique hues to the CIECAM02 colour appearance attributes, lightness, chroma and hue angle. We report two findings: (1) the hue angles derived from our unique hue data are inconsistent with the commonly used Natural Color System hues that are incorporated in the CIECAM02 model. We argue that our predicted unique hue angles (derived from our large dataset) provide a more reliable standard for colour management applications when the precise specification of these salient colours is important. (2) We test hue uniformity for CIECAM02 in all four unique hues and show significant disagreements for all hues, except for unique red which seems to be invariant under lightness changes. Our dataset is useful to improve the CIECAM02 model as it provides reliable data for benchmarking. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 36, 316-323, 2011; Published online 7 October 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20637