“Induced Grating”

from Michael’s Visual Phenomena & Optical Illusions

icon

What to observe

Above you see a so-called luminance grating with 4 dark-bright cycles. In the middle there is a horizontal greyish bar. Is the lightness (grey tone) constant when gazing along it? You may observe that the grey in the stripe is slightly darker and brighter along its length, in counterphase to the grating.

What to do

Comment

I initially had thought this to be a classical case of lateral inhibition in the retina. However, there is interocular transfer – it still works if you show the stripe to one eye and the background grating to the other, thus it’s cortically based. Further quantitative analyses (see sources below) also suggest that this effect has its mechanisms in the primary visual cortex. Details remain unclear.

Sources

McCourt ME (1982) A spatial frequency dependent grating-induction effect. Vision Res 22:119–134

Foley JM, McCourt ME (1985) Visual grating induction. J Opt Soc Am 2:1220–1230