Sensitivity to countermodulating gratings following spatiotemporal adaptation.

Contrast sensitivities to countermodulating gratings were measured with a two-alternative temporal forced-choice procedure following adaptation to a static grating of the same spatial frequency, a homogeneous flickering field of the same temporal frequency, or a countermodulating grating of identical spatial and temporal frequencies. At high spatial frequencies, the temporal-frequency content of the adaptation was not critical, that is, a countermodulating adaptation grating was only slightly more effective at raising threshold than was a static adaptation grating. At low spatial frequencies, the sensitivity to countermodulating test gratings could not be reduced by either a high-contrast stimulus matching the test in the spatial domain only or by one matching the test in the temporal domain only. Adapting to a high-contrast stimulus matching the countermodulating test grating in both spatial- and temporal-frequency domains was effective at reducing test sensitivity for one observer but not for another.