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Related Experiment Video

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An Emerging Target Paradigm to Evoke Fast Visuomotor Responses on Human Upper Limb Muscles

An Emerging Target Paradigm to Evoke Fast Visuomotor Responses on Human Upper Limb Muscles

Published on: August 25, 2020

Visual adaptation after effects for muscularity are body-part specific.

Wilder Daniel¹, Matthew R Longo¹

¹School of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK.

|November 28, 2025

Summary

Visual adaptation to body types causes aftereffects in perception. This study found that adaptation to muscular torsos or arms specifically affects judgments of those body parts, not others, demonstrating body-part specificity in visual processing.

Keywords:

Adaptation/constancy aftereffects body perception muscularity

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Area of Science:

Visual perception
Human body recognition
Sensory adaptation

Background:

Visual adaptation to extreme body types induces contrastive aftereffects in human body perception.
Cross-adaptation paradigms probe perceptual mechanisms by assessing aftereffects when stimuli vary in characteristics.

Purpose of the Study:

Investigate the body-part specificity of visual adaptation to body muscularity.
Determine if adaptation to muscularity in one body part influences perception of other body parts.

Main Methods:

Participants judged the muscularity of torsos and arms.
Adaptation involved exposure to either muscular torsos or muscular arms.
Aftereffects were measured by comparing pre- and post-adaptation judgments.

Main Results:

Adaptation to muscular torsos caused aftereffects in torso judgments, but not arm judgments.
Adaptation to muscular arms caused aftereffects in arm judgments, but not torso judgments.
A double dissociation was observed, indicating distinct adaptation mechanisms.

Conclusions:

Visual mechanisms for perceiving body muscularity are body-part specific.
Adaptation effects are localized to the specific body part adapted to.
This specificity challenges generalized models of body perception adaptation.