How is our perceptual adaptation and its postfects

The perceptual adaptation It refers to the decrease in the nerve response after having been exposed to a stimulus.

For example, when entering a cafeteria we can perceive a delicious aroma and retain it in our memory. But, little by little we will notice that the intensity is decreasing until it may disappear, and so it can occur with sounds, colors, among others, since we receive stimuli for any of our senses.

However, The postfect refers to the changes that occur in us after having received that stimulus or, specifically, the changes that occur in the judgments that we elaborate on the stimulus received prolonged.

To understand it a bit we can try to imagine how much our brain strives trying to understand the world that surrounds us so that our subsistence is possible.

Content

• How real is our world?
• Perceptual adaptation and postfects
• POSTECHES TYPES
  • Bibliography

How real is our world?

Perhaps reality is not an exact copy of something that exists in another world, as Plato stated many centuries ago, but rather, the result of our perceptions.

In this sense, Optical illusions open a wonderful door to address the complexity of our brain, Well, beyond being mere fun figures, this type of illusions can help us lay the basis for understanding the world that surrounds us.

Optical illusions have been studied by optometrists, physiologists, philosophers and psychologists, among other experts, but there is no consensus yet, because, While some argue that these are due to the retina, others consider that the nervous system is responsible. In any case, perception always counts.

According to Maiche, González and Pires, in the Introduction to Cognitive Psychology, they explain that perception is an experience capable of influencing that reality in which we trust to make our decisions.

So that, Visual perception is decisive in our reality, even when we understand that things cannot be as we are observing them.

This allows us to affirm that our environment is the result of the information we obtain with our senses and is then processed and interpreted in our brain, so that optical illusions are an attempt to try to explain what we have in front.

But what if after entertaining ourselves with an optical illusion, that we know that it cannot be true, we do not be the same for a good time?, What would our real world be then?

Perceptual adaptation and postfects

To answer our last question we return to the point of perceptual adaptation and postfects.

Be supposed to After being exposed to an optical illusion, our life returns to normal Once we stop observing it, or at least that is thought.

We emphasize optical illusions because view is our sensory system par excellence, but, illusions can also be tactile, auditory, olfactory and taste.

However, Most of the information we get we receive it through the view. Therefore, this type of illusions are the most common.

When we are in the presence of an optical illusion, wonderful things happen in our brain, such as pareidolia, or the effort that our brain makes to try to find meaning to what it observes; In this phenomenon, what the brain does is try to recognize something that is not defined very well, as with the Rorschach test.

But, as we mentioned, Once we stop seeing the "spots" or whatever we have in front, we return to normal values, following the order of perceptual adaptation.

However, what happens when the effects last over time? These changes are called postfects, as noted. The postfect can also occur in accordance with the stimulus received, that is, visual, olfactory, gustative and others.

POSTECHES TYPES

Postfects can be of two types, one positive and one negative. The positive consists of keeping the information for a moment, after the stimulus is over.

As for the negative postfect, this consists in experiencing a sensation contrary to that produced by stimulation. In the case of images, they fader quickly.

When addressing the issue of perceptual adaptation and postfects, it is worth asking how much this sensation can last after receiving a stimulus. The answer is surprising and to understand it is worth remembering the McColough effect.

Given the McColough effect, not only our interpretation is tried to adjust to the colors of the figure, but The perception of color can be altered for a while.

It was precisely this that convulsed many people when Celeste McColough presented the results of his research on the effects of colors in 1965, and many even feared this illusion, since after observing the drawing the person could stay with the effects, not only for hours until for months.

At that time many began to talk about an illusion that was able to "break the brain", as it was called since then. Many tried to give him an explanation and the discussion returned to the same thing: it was the retina or it was the brain where did the effect really happen?

Maccolough itself came to affirm that The effect was due to a neuronal adaptation.

Even today this illusion is surprising, since the further investigations of Jones and Holding found that the effects could last more than imagined.

As we have elucidated, perceptual adaptation and postfects are part of a topic as complex as interesting, in which only our brain makes to understand a probably chaotic world is demonstrated.

Check out the most incredible optical illusions

Bibliography

• Adis Castro, G. (1959). "Perceptual hypothesis" as adaptation factors.
• Day, r. H. (1973). Human perception psychology. Limusa-Wiley.
• Jones PD, Holding DH. Extremely Long-Term Persistence of the McColough Effect. J expichol hum percept perform. 1975 Nov; 1 (4): 323-7. DOI: 10.1037 // 0096-1523.1.4.323. PMID: 1185119.
• Ruiz, p., Apud, i., Maiche, a., González, h., Pires, a. C., Carboni, a.,… & Aznárez, L. (2016). INTRODUCTION MANUAL TO COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY.