Frequency of adapting events affects face aftereffects but not blur aftereffects

Abstract

The dynamics of visual adaptation remain poorly understood. Recent studies have found that the strength of adaptation aftereffects in the perception of numerosity depends more strongly on the number of adaptation events than on the duration of the adaptation. We investigated whether such effects can be observed for other visual attributes. We measured blur (perceived focus-sharp vs blurred adapt) and face (perceived race- Asian vs. White adapt) aftereffects by varying the number of adaptation events (4 or 16) and the duration of each adaptation event (0.25 s or 1 s). We found evidence for an effect of event number on face but not on blur adaptation, though the effect for faces was significant for only one of the two face adapt conditions (Asian). Our results suggest that different perceptual dimensions may vary in how adaptation effects accrue, potentially because of differences in factors such as the sites (early or late) of the sensitivity changes or nature of the stimulus. These differences may impact how and how rapidly the visual system can adjust to different visual properties.