Increment of the Extinction Illusion by Long Stimulation

Abstract

We quantitatively examined the effect of stimulus duration on the extinction illusion. A white disc was presented or not presented at an intersection of a grey grid (intersection configuration) or on a homogeneous background (background configuration). The extinction illusion was quantified as the subtraction of no-disc responses in the background configuration (ie baseline) from no-disc responses in the intersection configuration, when the disc was presented. Experiment 1 showed a temporal effect: the extinction illusion increased as stimulus duration increased; this temporal effect was observed when the disc was presented at 9 deg from the fixation point and when the stimulus duration was 1000 – 6000 ms. Experiment 2 showed a visual field anisotropy: the extinction illusion occurred more frequently in the upper visual field than in the lower visual field, when the stimulus duration was 200 ms; the anisotropy was not observed when the stimulus duration was 6000 ms. Experiment 3 showed an alley-length effect: when the grid alley was long, the extinction illusion occurred more frequently in the 6000 ms condition than in the 200 ms condition; the temporal effect was not observed when the grid alley was short. These results suggest that the temporal effect of the extinction illusion might be due to perceptual filling-in of luminance information of the grid alley.