Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 22, 2025

Visualizing Visual Adaptation
Published on: April 24, 2017
Designing for sensory adaptation: what you see depends on what you've been looking at - Recommendations, guidelines
Michael A Webster1, Mohana Kuppuswamy Parthasarathy1, Margarita L Zuley2
1Department of Psychology and Integrative Neuroscience Program, University of Nevada, Reno.
Abstract:
Sensory systems continuously recalibrate their responses according to the current stimulus environment. As a result, perception is strongly affected by the current and recent context. These adaptative changes affect both sensitivity (e.g., habituating to noise, seeing better in the dark) and appearance (e.g. how things look, what catches attention) and adjust to many perceptual properties (e.g. from light level to the characteristics of someone's face). They therefore have a profound effect on most perceptual experiences, and on how and how well the senses work in different settings. Characterizing the properties of adaptation, how it manifests, and when it influences perception in modern environments can provide insights into the diversity of human experience. Adaptation could also be leveraged both to optimize perceptual abilities (e.g. in visual inspection tasks like radiology) and to mitigate unwanted consequences (e.g. exposure to potentially unhealthy stimulus environments).
Related Concept Videos
Perception
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...
Depth Perception and Spatial Vision
Visual System
Once through the pupil, the light passes through the lens, a...
Neuroplasticity
Parallel Processing
Perceptual Constancy
Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same size, even when its image on the retina changes. For instance, a bus is perceived to be large enough to carry people, even if it looks tiny from...

