Strength of Motion Aftereffect Varies with Segregation of Test Field and Surround

It is widely accepted that the motion aftereffect (MAE) results from the adaptation of visual motion detectors. However, recent work suggests that how the effects of that adaptation are expressed (the nature of the perceived MAE) depends on the nature of the inducing and test fields. We investigated how the strength of the MAE varied with the nature of the boundary between the test field and the surround. The surround (18.5 deg wide × 13.5 deg high) to the adapting and test fields was an area of vertical square-wave grating of 0.7 cycle deg−1. During adaptation, vertical stripes of the same spatial frequency as the background moved horizontally at a speed of 2 deg s−1 for 14 s within a central rectangular window of 9.7 deg wide × 7.6 deg high. At the end of adaptation, one of six different test fields was presented in the central window. In three of these, the stationary test stripes were exactly aligned with the surrounding stripes, and in the other three they were offset by half a stripe width. For two of these conditions (one aligned, one offset), a black outline was drawn around the edge of the adapting window (and so was visible only where it crossed white areas), and for two others (one aligned, one offset) the outline was red, and so visible in its entirety. The strength of MAEs in twelve subjects was assessed both by ratings at an auditory signal which occurred 0.5 s after the end of adaptation and also by measurement of their durations. There was good agreement between these two measures. MAEs were significantly stronger on the offset than on the aligned test fields. The presence of an outline increased MAE strength compared with no outline, but these outline effects were much weaker than those of offsetting the test stripes from the surround. We suggest that the MAE depends in part on the presence of a visually separable test pattern to which motion may be allocated.