Enduring stereoscopic motion aftereffects induced by prolonged adaptation

This study investigated the effects of prolonged adaptation on the recovery of the stereoscopic motion aftereffect (adaptation induced by moving binocular disparity information). The adapting and test stimuli were stereoscopic grating patterns created from disparity, embedded in dynamic random-dot stereograms. Motion aftereffects induced by luminance stimuli were included in the study for comparison. Adaptation duration was either 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 min and the duration of the ensuing aftereffect was the variable of interest. The results showed that aftereffect duration was proportional to the square root of adaptation duration for both stereoscopic and luminance stimuli; on log-log axes, the relation between aftereffect duration and adaptation duration was a power law with the slope near 0.5 in both cases. For both kinds of stimuli, there was no sign of adaptation saturation even at the longest adaptation duration.