Recovery from adaptation for dynamic and static motion aftereffects: evidence for two mechanisms

The motion aftereffect (MAE) is an illusory drift of a physically stationary pattern induced by prolonged viewing of a moving pattern. Depending on the nature of the test pattern the MAE can be phenomenally different. This difference in appearance has led to the suggestion that different underlying mechanisms may be responsible and several reports show that this might be the case. Here, we tested whether differences in MAE duration obtained with stationary test patterns and dynamic test patterns can be explained by a single underlying mechanism. We find the results support the existence of (at least) two mechanisms. The two mechanisms show different characteristics: the static MAE (i.e. the MAE tested with a static test pattern) is almost completely stored when the static test is preceded by a dynamic test; in contradistinction, the dynamic MAE is not stored when dynamic testing is preceded by a static test pattern.