The McCollough effect: dissociating retinal from spatial coordinates

Three experiments were conducted to dissociate the perceived orientation of a stimulus from its orientation on the retina while inducing the McCollough effect. In the first experiment, the typical contingency between color and retinal orientation was eliminated by having subjects tilt their head 90 degrees for half of the induction trials while the stimuli remained the same. The only relation remaining was that between color and the perceived or spatial orientation, which led to only a small contingent aftereffect. In contrast, when the spatial contingency was eliminated in the second experiment, the aftereffect was as large as when both contingencies were present. Finally, a third experiment determined that part of the small spatial effect obtained in the first experiment could be traced to hidden higher order retinal contingencies. The study suggested that even under optimal conditions the McCollough effect is not concerned with real-world properties of objects or events. Implications for several classes of theories are discussed.