research

The illusion of uniformity does not depend on the primary visual cortex: evidence from sensory adaptation

Abstract

Visual experience appears richly detailed despite the poor resolution of the majority of the visual field, thanks to foveal-peripheral integration. The recently described Uniformity Illusion (UI), wherein peripheral elements of a pattern take on the appearance of foveal elements, may shed light on this integration. We examined the basis of UI by generating adaptation to a pattern of Gabors suitable for producing UI on orientation. After removing the pattern, participants reported the tilt of a single peripheral Gabor. The tilt after-effect followed the physical adapting orientation rather than the global orientation perceived under UI, even when the illusion had been reported for a long time. Conversely, a control experiment replacing illusory uniformity with a physically uniform Gabor pattern for the same durations did produce an after-effect to the global orientation. Results indicate that UI is not associated with changes in sensory encoding at V1, but likely depends on higher-level processes

    Similar works