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Updated: May 18, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation
Published on: April 24, 2017
Luminance contours can gate afterimage colors and "real" colors
Stuart Anstis1, Mark Vergeer, Rob Van Lier
1University of California, San Diego, CA, USA. sanstis@ucsd.edu
Abstract:
It has long been known that colored images may elicit afterimages in complementary colors. We have already shown (Van Lier, Vergeer, & Anstis, 2009) that one and the same adapting image may result in different afterimage colors, depending on the test contours presented after the colored image. The color of the afterimage depends on two adapting colors, those both inside and outside the test. Here, we further explore this phenomenon and show that the color-contour interactions shown for afterimage colors also occur for "real" colors. We argue that similar mechanisms apply for both types of stimulation.
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