Visual Adaptation

Abstract

Sensory systems continuously mold themselves to the widely varying contexts in which they must operate. Studies of these adaptations have played a long and central role in vision science, partly because the specific adaptations remain a powerful tool for dissecting vision by exposing the mechanisms that are adapting. That is, “if it adapts, it's there.” Many insights about vision have come from this use of adaptation, as a method. A second important trend has been the realization that the processes of adaptation are themselves essential to how vision works and thus likely operate at all levels. That is, “if it's there, it adapts.” This observation has focused interest on the mechanisms of adaptation as the target rather than the probe. Together, these approaches have led to an emerging view of adaptation as a fundamental and ubiquitous coding strategy impacting all aspects of how we see.