The Role of Temporal and Spatial Attention in Size Adaptation

Tonelli, Alessia; Pooresmaeili, Arezoo; Arrighi, Roberto · 2020 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00539

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Summary

This study investigates whether visual attention modulates size adaptation, a phenomenon where prolonged exposure to a stimulus of a specific size distorts the perceived size of subsequent stimuli presented in the same location. While previous research suggests that size perception involves both bottom-up retinal inputs and top-down contextual cues, the specific role of attentional mechanisms remains debated. Some theories propose that size adaptation arises from local gain control mechanisms in the primary visual cortex (V1), which would be attention-independent. Others suggest that top-down feedback from higher-level areas, which are attention-sensitive, might influence these effects. To resolve this, the authors tested whether diverting visual attention away from adapting stimuli reduces or eliminates size adaptation aftereffects. The researchers employed a size discrimination task where participants judged the relative size of a test stimulus and a reference stimulus. In the baseline condition, participants adapted to a large stimulus before performing the discrimination. To manipulate attention, participants performed one of two demanding central visual tasks during the adaptation phase: Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), which engages temporal attention, or Multiple Object Tracking (MOT), which engages spatio-temporal attention. These tasks were designed to draw attention away from the peripheral adapting stimuli. The study included nine healthy adults who performed trials with and without these central attentional tasks. Performance was measured using the Point of Subjective Equality (PSE) for accuracy and Weber Fractions (WFs) for precision. The results demonstrated robust size adaptation effects in the baseline condition, where adapting to a large stimulus caused the test stimulus to appear smaller. Crucially, engaging in either the RSVP or MOT tasks did not significantly alter the magnitude of these adaptation aftereffects. The PSEs and WFs remained nearly identical across conditions, whether participants attended to the central task, passively viewed the central stimuli, or performed no central task at all. Statistical analyses confirmed no significant differences in accuracy or precision between the attention-manipulated conditions and the baseline adaptation condition. These findings indicate that visual attention does not play a key role in size adaptation. The persistence of adaptation effects despite the diversion of attentional resources suggests that the phenomenon is driven by automatic, pre-attentive processes. This supports the hypothesis that size adaptation is accounted for by local gain control mechanisms within area V1, rather than by top-down feedback from attention-sensitive higher-level visual areas. The study clarifies the neural basis of size perception, distinguishing between attention-dependent contextual modulations and attention-independent adaptive mechanisms.

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