The tilt after-effect: A fresh look

doi:10.1016/0042-6989(71)90005-8

Vision Research

Volume 11, Issue 8, August 1971, Pages 833-840

https://doi.org/10.1016/0042-6989(71)90005-8 Get rights and content

Abstract

A high contract grating was used to induce the tilt after-effect. It was found to occur only close to the vertical and horizontal orientations. The interocular transfer of this effect is complete. Judgement of the vertical and horizontal orientation as measured by determining the Standard Deviation at a number of orientations is much more precise even when the cue of gravity is removed. All the characteristics of the tilt after-effect cannot be accounted for by adaption of neurones selectively sensitive to orientation, although they may well be involved.

Résumé

Une grille très fine a été utilisée pour produire une inclinaison par répercussion. On a trouvé que cet effet se produisait seulement près des orientations verticale et horizontale. Le transfert interoculaire de cet effet est complet. Le jugement de l'orientation verticale et horizontale, mesurée en déterminant la Dévìation Standard à un nombre d'orientations, est beaucoup plus précis même quand l'index de gravité est écarté. Toutes les caractéristiques de l'effet d'inclinaison qui suit, ne peuvent pas etre expliquées par l'adaptation des neurone sélectivement sensibles à l'orientation, quoiqu'ils pourraient bien être impliqués.

Zusammenfassung

Man verwendete ein stark zusammenziehendes Beugungsgitter zur Erzeugung der Kipp-Nachwirkung. Man fand, dass diese nur nahe den vertikalen und horizontalen Orientationen auftrat. Die zwischen den Augen stattfindende Wirkung dieses Effektes ist komplett. Beurteilung der vertikalen und horizontalen Orientierung bemessen nach der Bestimmung der Standardabweichung einer Reihe von Orientationen ist viel präziser, selbst nach Entfernung des Gravitationssignals. Nicht alle charakteristischen Merkmale der Kipp-Nachwirkung können durch Anpassung von Neuronen, die gegenüber Orientierung selektiv sensitiv sind, erklärt werden, obwohl es leicht möglich ist, dass sie etwas damit zu tun haben.

Реферат

Для пoлyчeния пocлeдeйcтвня oт нaклoнa иcпoльзoвaлacь peшeткa выcoкoй cзимaeмocти. Этo пocлeдeйcтвиe cкaзывaлocь тoлькo пpи opиeнтиpoвкaч близкич к вepтикaльнoй и гopизoнтaльнoй. Bнyтpиглaзнaя пepeдaчa зтoгo пocлeдeйcтвия пoлнaя. Cyждeниe o вepтикaльнoй и гopизoнтaльиoй opнeитиpoвкe, измepeннoй пyтeм oпpeдeлeния cтaндapтнoгo oтклoнeния пpи pядe opиeнтиpoвoк являeтcя eщe бoлee тoчным, кoгдa ycтpaняeтcя фaктop cилы тяжecти. Xapaктepиcтики пocлeдcтвия oт нaклoнa нe мoгyт быть цeликoм oтнeceны зa cчeт ceлeктивнoй aдaптaции чyвcтвитeльныч к opиeнтиpoвкe нeйpoнoв, нo oии мoгyт итpaть знaчитeльнyю poль.

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Still, this discrepancy should probably not be considered as a strong argument against the theory, because orientations that are sufficiently far from the reference are obviously not suited to serve as good reference cues (and hence deserve a lower weight). More extensive modeling is outside the scope of this work, but TAE may indeed be linear with small orientation differences (Campbell & Maffei, 1971; Magnussen & Kurtenbach, 1980). Overall, the theory suggests how different reference cues are combined, which can account for the TAE and the TI.
The processing of a visual stimulus is known to be influenced by the statistics in recent visual history and by the stimulus' visual surround. Such contextual influences lead to perceptually salient phenomena, such as the tilt aftereffect and the tilt illusion. Despite much research on the influence of an isolated context, it is not clear how multiple, possibly competing sources of contextual influence interact. Here, using psychophysical methods, we compared the combined influence of multiple contexts to the sum of the isolated context influences. The results showed large deviations from linear additivity for adjacent or overlapping contexts, and remarkably, clear additivity when the contexts were sufficiently separated. Specifically, for adjacent or overlapping contexts, the combined effect was often lower than the sum of the isolated component effects (sub-additivity), or was more influenced by one component than another (selection). For contexts that were separated in time (600 ms), the combined effect measured the exact sum of the isolated component effects (in degrees of bias). Overall, the results imply an initial compressive transformation during visual processing, followed by selection between the processed parts.
What is a preattentive feature?
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It is tempting to think that features should produce featural aftereffects. After all, for instance, orientation is a feature dimension and there are orientation (tilt) aftereffects [76,77]. The same is true for size, motion, and others [78].
The concept of a preattentive feature has been central to vision and attention research for about half a century. A preattentive feature is a feature that guides attention in visual search and that cannot be decomposed into simpler features. While that definition seems straightforward, there is no simple diagnostic test that infallibly identifies a preattentive feature. This paper briefly reviews the criteria that have been proposed and illustrates some of the difficulties of definition.
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This novel dissociation of serial dependencies in perception and decision stands in opposition to previous reports of positive perceptual serial dependence [1–3, 15, 16] and highlights the importance of studying effects of sensory history on perceptual and post-perceptual processes in separation. The negative perceptual bias in experiments 2 and 3 was spatially specific and resembles the well-studied negative tilt-aftereffect in orientation perception [6–13], which is part of a larger family of negative adaptation effects [17–21]. It is widely assumed that adaptation serves to optimize visual processing [22–24] and maximizes sensitivity to change in the adapted feature dimension [25–27].
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Such studies are typically performed using synthetic patterns. For example, research about the tilt aftereffect (TAE), which is the change in the perceived orientation for stimuli near the adaptor orientation, is typically performed using synthetic lines (Gibson & Radner, 1937), gratings (Campbell & Maffei, 1971; Mitchell & Muir, 1976), or Gabor patches (Knapen, Rolfs, Wexler, & Cavanagh, 2010). However, natural vision is more complex, and the visual system operates differently for synthetic and natural input (Alam, Vilankar, Field, & Chandler, 2014; Carandini et al., 2005; Olshausen & Field, 2005).
The human visual system continuously adjusts to the current environment. To investigate these adjustments, biases in observers’ perceptions owing to changes in the visual environment are measured (visual aftereffects). Typically, the stimuli used are synthetic and are composed of oriented patterns such as lines or gratings. These patterns are known to activate individual neurons in the visual cortex, but cover only a small subset of actual visual stimulations. To overcome this drawback, recent research has focused on synthetic patterns that mimic several aspects of natural stimulation. However, the aftereffects of natural stimulation per-se remain largely unexplored. Here, we interleaved presentations of unmodified natural image adaptors, selected according to criteria favoring content at a particular orientation, with presentations of targets that test a perceived orientation. This allowed us to measure the change in the perceived orientation, namely the tilt aftereffect (TAE), which resulted from repeated image presentations. Results show a close to standard TAE with adaptor durations around 500 ms, which is reduced with longer presentations. Importantly, our method can be generalized to investigate other aftereffects by selecting images differently.
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From moment to moment, we perceive objects in the world as continuous despite fluctuations in their image properties due to factors like occlusion, visual noise, and eye movements. The mechanism by which the visual system accomplishes this object continuity remains elusive. Recent results have demonstrated that the perception of low-level stimulus features such as orientation and numerosity is systematically biased (i.e., pulled) toward visual input from the recent past [1, 2]. The spatial region over which current orientations are pulled by previous orientations is known as the continuity field, which is temporally tuned for the past 10–15 s [1]. This perceptual pull could contribute to the visual stability of low-level features over short time periods, but it does not address how visual stability occurs at the level of object identity. Here, we tested whether the visual system facilitates stable perception by biasing current perception of a face, a complex and behaviorally relevant object, toward recently seen faces. We found that perception of face identity is systematically biased toward identities seen up to several seconds prior, even across changes in viewpoint. This effect did not depend on subjects’ prior responses or on the method used to measure identity perception. Although this bias in perceived identity manifests as a misperception, it is adaptive: visual processing echoes the stability of objects in the world to create perceptual continuity. The serial dependence of identity perception promotes object identity invariance over time and provides the clearest evidence for the existence of an object-selective perceptual continuity field.

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¹: On leave from Laboratorio di Neurofisiolgia del C.N.R., Pisa, Italy.

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The tilt after-effect: A fresh look

Abstract

Résumé

Zusammenfassung

Реферат

On the existence in the human visual system of neurons selectively sensitive to the orientation and size of retinal images

J. Physiol

The angular selectivity of visual cortical cells to moving gratings

J. Physiol

The spatial selectivity of the visual cells of the cat

J. Physiol

The spatial selectivity of visual cells of the cat and squirrel monkey

J. Physiol

Orientational selectivity of the human visual system

J. Physiol

The effect of orientation on the visual resolution of gratings

J. Physiol

Electrophysiological evidence for the existence of orientation and size detectors in the human visual system

J. Physioi

Adaptation, after-effects, and contrast in the perception of curved lines

J. exp. Psychol

Adaptation, after effect, and contrast in the perception of tilted lines—I. Quantitative studies

J. exp. Psychol

Human Spatial Orientation