THE GENERALITY OF NEGATIVE AFTEREFFECT FOLLOWING ADAPTATION TO CURVATURE

Abstract

Twenty‐six subjects made judgments of curvature by the method of magnitude estimation. The influence of prior adaptation to a moderate degree of curvature was assessed for test‐curvatures greater and less than the adapting curvature and in the same and opposite directions. The median aftereffect was negative in all cases but not statistically significant for the most extreme difference between adapting and test curvatures. It is argued that negative aftereffect for all test‐curvatures along the same stimulus‐continuum is a necessary condition for postulating that these experimental effects represent a general normalizing tendency in perception.