Stationary phantoms and grating induction with oblique inducing gratings: Implications for different mechanisms underlying the two phenomena

The visibility of stationary visual phantoms and the grating induction (GI) effect were concurrently analyzed with both black and gray inspection area s (IA) using the same subjects with counterbalanced orders of measurements. Oblique inducing gratings were employed in order to compare the visibility of obliquely aligned and vertically misaligned appearances between the two phenomena Aligned and misaligned phantom responses with a black IA were si milar, whereas overall phantom visibility was severely suppressed when the IA was gray. In contrast, misaligned GI dominated with a gray IA, whereas a ligned and misaligned GI responses were similar with a black Lk Phantoms ap pear to be related to visual mechanisms' selectively utilizing relative lum inance information between the inducing grating and IA in a manner consiste nt with more global figural characteristics of the display (e.g., modal and amodal completion). On the other hand, GI may be predominantly due to loca lly operating brightness/contrast mechanisms.