ABSTRACT
Residual movement aftereffects (MAE) can be observed long after inspection of real motion. They are contingent upon the features of the stationary test figure and upon its similarity to the features of the figure in real motion. A neurosensory adaptation process explains the noncontingent aspects of immediate MAEs. An associative conditioning process is proposed in order to explain the contingent aspects of the residual MAEs. In particular, these effects show extinction and spontaneous recovery.
Five experiments are presented. Experiment I proposes a taxonomy of the MAEs phenomena. Experiment II demonstrates that no recovery is obtained for a noncontingent MAE. Experiment III shows that the frequency of reports of residual MAEs varies curvilinearly with the duration of the rest period introduced between the observation of the real motion and the test of the residual MAE. Experiments IV and V examine the role of the distribution of the trials during the acquisition of the effect. It was found that a better acquisition is obtained when the noncontingent MAEs are observed during acquisition.
