Number Adaptation Can Be Dissociated From Density Adaptation

Rapidly judging the number of objects in a scene is an important perceptual ability. Recent debates have centered on whether number perception is accomplished by dedicated mechanisms and, in particular, on whether number-adaptation aftereffects reflect adaptation of number per se or adaptation of related stimulus properties, such as density. Here, we report an adaptation experiment (N = 8) for which the predictions of number and density theories are diametrically opposed. We found that when a reference stimulus has higher density than an adaptation stimulus but contains fewer elements, adaptation reduces the perceived number of elements in the reference stimulus. This is consistent with number adaptation and inconsistent with density adaptation. Thus, number-adaptation aftereffects are more than a by-product of density adaptation: When density and number are dissociated, adaptation effects are in the direction predicted by adaptation to number, not density.