The effects of color-specific adaptation on the perceived duration of gratings

The perceived duration of briefly presented chromatic gratings was found to change with prior chromatic grating adaptation. Perceived durations of red and green, vertical and horizontal square wave gratings were measured by having subjects judge when the intermittently presented stimuli appeared continuously present. With monocular viewing, the apparent duration of a grating decreased only after adaptation to gratings of the same color and orientation. When viewed with the other eye, there were no significant changes in apparent duration, no matter what the grating color. These results extend the finding that duration judgements are sensitive to adaptation based on cortical receptive field parameters. The lack of interocular transfer is consistent with most visual aftereffects generated with colored gratings.