Effects of brief and prolonged blur adaptation on visual search and discrimination

Adaptation to blurred or sharpened images has a large and rapid effect on perceived image focus and at longer durations has also been reported to impact acuity and blur sensitivity, but the dynamics and functional consequences of the adaptation remain poorly characterized. We tested the effects of blur adaptation on visual performance for two tasks and two adapting durations. Specifically, we measured the effects of brief (12 s) vs. prolonged (2 h) blur adaptation on visual search and discrimination performance. Our results show that adaptation improved search accuracies for novel blur levels after prolonged but not brief adapting duration, while neither duration improved blur discrimination. The improvements in visual search could reflect the role of adaptation in increasing the salience of novel properties in the visual environment.