Adaptation effects on the apparent "squareness" of square-wave gratings

Adaptation to a 9 cycles deg-1 sine wave makes the apparent brightness profile of a 3 cycles deg-1 square wave look less "square" even when it does not look like that of a sine wave. Adaptation to a 3 cycles deg-1 sine wave has no noticeable effect. Hypotheses based on "excitation patterns" across spatial-frequency-selective channels can account for these results; it is not clear whether variations in local light adaptation can also account for them.