Aftereffect of adaptation to Glass patterns.
Our visual systems constantly adapt their representation of the environment to match the prevailing input. Adaptation phenomena provide striking examples of perceptual plasticity and offer valuable insight into the mechanisms of sensory coding. Here, we describe an aftereffect of adaptation to a spatially structured image whereby an unstructured test stimulus takes on illusory structure locally perpendicular to that of the adaptor. Objective measurement of the strength of the aftereffect for different patterns suggests a neural locus of adaptation prior to the extraction of complex form in the visual processing hierarchy, probably at the level of primary visual cortex. This view is supported by further experiments showing that the aftereffect exhibits partial interocular transfer but complete transfer across opposite contrast polarities. However, the aftereffect does show weak position invariance, suggesting that adaptation at higher levels of the visual system may also contribute to the effect.
Clifford
Colin W G
CW
Colour, Form and Motion Lab, Visual Perception Unit, Department of Psychology, School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Griffith Taylor Building (A19), Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. colinc@psych.usyd.edu.au
Weston
Erin
E
D000221:Adaptation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D005366:Figural Aftereffect; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009903:Optical Illusions; D011601:Psychophysics; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology