The visible persistence of illusory contours.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Two experiments were conducted which measured the visible persistence of illusory contours. Experiment 1 determined persistance for illusory contour squares presented for 50 ms. The illusory contours yielded 40 ms more persistence than controls. Phenomenologically, the subjective square would seem to hang in space after the inducing elements faded. The second experiment varied target duration from 50 to 1000 ms. For the control figures, visible persistence decreased with increasing target duration, the typical inverse duration effect. However, with the illusory contour targets, persistence first increased sharply with increasing target duration and then decreased. These results suggest that the time it takes for the visual system to construct the subjective contour yield an overall increase in persistence, and this ongoing processing can be seen over long target durations. These data further support the existence of cortical components of visible persistence.