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Release from inhibition reveals the visual past

Abstract

Prolonged viewing of a high-contrast repetitive pattern such as a grating leads to adaptation of the corresponding visual-processing channels1. We have found that such viewing also leads to the short-term establishment of a subthreshold trace in the brain that can cause a visual illusion of the pattern during rebound from the cross-orientation inhibition2,3,4 that is induced by viewing moving patterns with an orthogonal orientation.

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Figure 1: The stimuli used and the after-effect.

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Vidyasagar, T., Buzás, P., Kisvárday, Z. et al. Release from inhibition reveals the visual past. Nature 399, 422 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/20836

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