Temporal properties of the chromatic and achromatic Craik–O’Brien–Cornsweet effect

The Craik–O’Brien–Cornsweet effect (COCE) is a visual illusion in which a difference in brightness is observed between two regions of equal luminance separated by a contrast edge with opposite luminance gradients on each side. The COCE also occurs with chromatic contrasts. It has been hypothesized that the COCE is mediated by a cortical filling-in process. According to the filling-in hypothesis, the filling-in or spreading of neural activity proceeds at finite speed, and therefore exhibits some temporal tuning as a function of the width of the area to be filled in. In the present study, observers varied the temporal frequency of a COC grating to determine the maximum temporal frequency at which a temporal modulation of brightness or color was perceived. In the achromatic COCE, contours were modulated along the luminance axis of the DKL color space; in the chromatic COCE, contours were modulated either along the L − M or the S − (L + M) axis. For the achromatic condition, the critical temporal frequency at which the COCE was still perceived had the shape of an inverted U, inconsistent with the filling-in hypothesis: the critical temporal frequency increased with increasing spatial frequency only up to 0.2 cycles/deg, but then decreased for higher spatial frequencies. For the chromatic COCE, the critical temporal frequency decreased with increasing spatial frequency, which is also inconsistent with filling-in. Thus, the results of the present study are inconsistent with the idea that the temporal dynamics of the COCE, both achromatic and chromatic, are due to filling-in. Instead, our results are consistent with the spatial filtering properties of the luminance and chromatic systems.