RECOVERY FROM ADAPTATION FOR DYNAMIC AND STATIC MOTION AFTEREFFECTS -EVIDENCE FOR 2 MECHANISMS

The motion aftereffect (MAE) is an illusory drift of a physically stat ionary pattern induced by prolonged viewing of a moving pattern. Depen ding on the nature of the test pattern the MAE can be phenomenally dif ferent. This difference in appearance has Ld to the suggestion that di fferent underlying mechanisms may be responsible and several reports s how that this might be the case, Here, we tested whether differences i n MAE duration obtained with stationary test patterns and dynamic test patterns can be explained by a single underlying mechanism. We find t he results support the existence of(at least) two mechanisms, The two mechanisms show different characteristics: the static MAE (i.e. the MA E tested with a static test pattern) is almost completely stored when the static test is preceded by a dynamic test; in contradistinction, t he dynamic MAE is not stored when dynamic testing is preceded by a sta tic test pattern.