Spatial selectivity of the visual duration aftereffect in the sub-second range: An event-related potentials study

Prolonged adaptation to one duration biases the perception of subsequent durations in a phenomenon known as duration adaptation. There is controversy regarding the neural substrates of the visual duration aftereffect: some researchers have argued that duration adaptation occurs in early visual cortical areas, whereas others have argued for high-level visual areas. Investigation of spatial selectivity of the duration aftereffect could help reveal the neural mechanisms underlying duration adaptation. In the present study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to demonstrate spatial selectivity of the visual duration aftereffect in the sub-second range. We measured the duration aftereffect at a 20° adapt-test distance that spanned 10° on either side of fixation. Our results revealed that duration adaptation first affected the N1 ERP component and then influenced the contingent negative variation (CNV) component. Moreover, the CNV component showed position effects in the temporal encoding stage, and the post-stimulus positive component was subject to a duration effect but not a position effect. These findings indicate that sub-second duration coding is closely linked to the early processing of the visual cortex. Moreover, the adaptation not only affects the earlier temporal coding stage, but also the later temporal processing stage.