Elsevier

Vision Research

Volume 16, Issue 10, 1976, Pages 1043-1045
Vision Research

Adaptation to gratings: No compensatory advantages found

https://doi.org/10.1016/0042-6989(76)90241-8Get rights and content

Abstract

Psychophysical measurements were made following adaptation to gratings in order to test the hypothesis that adaptation to patterned features of visual stimulation serves a function analogous to the changes in retinal function during light and dark adaptation. No improvements in detecting changes of spatial frequency, orientation or contrast were found.

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    Contrast discrimination, for example, has sometimes been found to improve after adaptation (Abbonizio, Langley, & Clifford, 1998; Greenlee & Heitger, 1988), and sometimes it has been found to remain unchanged (Maatanen & Koenderink, 1991; Ross, Speed, & Morgan, 1993). Orientation discrimination likewise has been shown to improve (Regan & Beverley, 1985), remain unchanged (Barlow, Macleod, & van Meeteren, 1976), or worsen (Clifford, Wyatt, Arnold, Smith, & Wenderoth, 2001) following adaptation (for a review, see Clifford, 2002). In the present experiments, positive TAEs indicated that, following adaptation, there was a bias in orientation judgments away from the true orientation, while an increase in sigma indicated that orientation discrimination worsened.

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1

Present address: Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge CB2 3EG, England.

2

Present address: Psychology Laboratory, University of California, San Diego, CA 92037 U.S.A.

3

Present address: Institute for Perception TNO, Soesterberg, Kampweg 5, Postbus 23, The Netherlands.

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