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Updated: Aug 10, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation
Published on: April 24, 2017
Strength of early visual adaptation depends on visual awareness
Randolph Blake1, Duje Tadin, Kenith V Sobel
1Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 111 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203, USA. randolph.blake@vanderbilt.edu
Abstract:
We measured visual-adaptation strength under variations in visual awareness by manipulating phenomenal invisibility of adapting stimuli using binocular rivalry and visual crowding. Results showed that the threshold-elevation aftereffect and the translational motion aftereffect were reduced substantially during binocular rivalry and crowding. Importantly, aftereffect reduction was correlated with the proportion of time that the adapting stimulus was removed from visual awareness. These findings indicate that the neural events that underlie both rivalry and crowding are inaugurated at an early stage of visual processing, because both the threshold-elevation aftereffect and translational motion aftereffect arise, at least in part, from adaptation at the earliest stages of cortical processing. Also, our findings make it necessary to reinterpret previous studies whose results were construed as psychophysical evidence against the direct role of neurons in the primary visual cortex in visual awareness.
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