Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Neuroplasticity01:01

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity reflects the brain's remarkable capacity to adapt and evolve, responding dynamically to learning, experiences, or injury by reorganizing its neural circuitry. This reorganization involves creating new neural connections and refining old ones through a series of biological processes that contribute to the brain's lifelong development and adaptability.
Optimal Foraging00:48

Optimal Foraging

How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.
Natural Selection and Adaptation01:15

Natural Selection and Adaptation

Natural selection, a fundamental concept in evolutionary biology, is the mechanism by which evolution is driven, favoring organisms that are best adapted to their environments. This process enhances their chances of survival and reproduction. Adaptation, a key outcome of this process, involves genetic modifications that optimize an organism's functionality under specific environmental challenges, such as extreme cold or thinner air at high altitudes.
Beyond physical adaptations, psychological...
Perception01:28

Perception

Perception is a fundamental psychological process that enables individuals to organize, interpret, and consciously experience sensory information. This process is crucial for understanding and interacting with the world around us. It includes both bottom-up and top-down processing, each playing a distinct role in how we perceive our environment.
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...
Optimal Arousal Theory01:23

Optimal Arousal Theory

The optimal arousal theory suggests that performance is maximized when an individual experiences a moderate level of arousal. This theory is closely tied to the Yerkes-Dodson law, which illustrates an inverted U-shaped relationship between arousal and performance. The law, formulated by psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson, implies an ideal arousal level for optimal performance, and deviations from this level can lead to declines in effectiveness.
Inverted U-Shaped Performance Curve
The...
Sensation01:21

Sensation

Sensory receptors are specialized neurons that respond to specific types of external stimuli, initiating the process known as sensation. This occurs when sensory input, such as light entering the eye, is detected by these receptors, causing chemical changes in the cells of the retina. These cells then convert the sensory stimulus into action potentials that are transmitted to the central nervous system, a process termed transduction.
Absolute thresholds can quantify the sensitivity of sensory...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Assessing the foundations of forensic identification evidence: A critical examination of proficiency test design and results.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

MAGIC: Study Design and Rationale for the Phase 2 Clinical Trial of Faricimab for Non-Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy.

Ophthalmologica. Journal international d'ophtalmologie. International journal of ophthalmology. Zeitschrift fur Augenheilkunde·2026
Same author

Artificial transneurons emulate neuronal activity in different areas of brain cortex.

Nature communications·2025
Same author

The Hawthorne effect in studies of firearm and toolmark examiners.

Journal of forensic sciences·2025
Same author

A call for open science in forensics.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2024
Same author

A scientist's take on scientific evidence in the courtroom.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2023
Same journal

Chemotactic self-organization captures the dynamics of mammalian hair follicle patterning.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Tomographic imaging of superconducting order using particle-hole interference.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Inhibitory potential of autologous neutralizing antibodies sets quantitative limits on the rebound-competent HIV-1 reservoir.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Inferring epidemiological parameters under an infectious phylogeography model with visitor dynamics.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Analytical modeling for suction cup designs for skin-interfaced wearable devices.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Improving cell-free metabolism through direct integration of artificial respiratory chains.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 13, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation
04:43

Visualizing Visual Adaptation

Published on: April 24, 2017

Sensory adaptation as optimal resource allocation.

Sergei Gepshtein1, Luis A Lesmes, Thomas D Albright

  • 1Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. sergei@salk.edu

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|February 23, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Visual adaptation reorganizes sensitivity across many stimuli, not just those that change. This process optimizes overall visual performance in new environments, contrary to prior expectations.

More Related Videos

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition
07:14

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

Published on: October 29, 2018

Long-term Sensory Conflict in Freely Behaving Mice
06:12

Long-term Sensory Conflict in Freely Behaving Mice

Published on: February 20, 2019

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 13, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation
04:43

Visualizing Visual Adaptation

Published on: April 24, 2017

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition
07:14

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

Published on: October 29, 2018

Long-term Sensory Conflict in Freely Behaving Mice
06:12

Long-term Sensory Conflict in Freely Behaving Mice

Published on: February 20, 2019

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Vision Science
  • Computational Neuroscience

Background:

  • Visual adaptation is typically expected to enhance visual performance.
  • However, studies show adaptation can decrease sensitivity to adapting stimuli or alter sensitivity to dissimilar stimuli.
  • This suggests adaptation may optimize sensitivity more broadly than previously thought.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if visual adaptation optimizes sensitivity across a wide range of stimuli, rather than just those with altered statistics.
  • To test a hypothesis that adaptation reorganizes visual sensitivity to improve overall performance in novel environments.

Main Methods:

  • Measured visual sensitivity across diverse spatiotemporal luminance modulations.
  • Manipulated the statistical distribution of stimulus speeds during adaptation.

Main Results:

  • Observed a large-scale reorganization of visual sensitivity following stimulus statistic changes.
  • Identified an orderly pattern of sensitivity gains and losses across various stimuli.
  • This pattern aligns with predictions from theories on receptive field characteristic distributions.

Conclusions:

  • Visual adaptation optimizes sensitivity across a broad range of stimuli, not solely those that change.
  • The observed pattern supports a model where the visual system distributes receptive field characteristics to manage diverse environmental statistics.
  • This provides a new framework for understanding visual adaptation and performance optimization.