How Long Does Chromatic Adaptation Last?

Sensory adaptation lets our senses "filter" stimuli, deciding which are important. Tuning out background noise and distractions, our senses notice stimuli that change and ignore those that do not. Chromatic adaptation is an adaptation specific to visual stimuli.

Benefits

Our senses notify us about changes in our environment, tuning these out as they become constant. Sensing our clothing when we first get dressed, our bodies do not continue to tell us about that clothing's touch all day. Without such adaptation we would be bombarded with sensations, to the point of overload. Chromatic adaptation allows color constancy and enables us to judge color by contextual clues: a yellow shirt continues looking yellow even as the light fades.

Function

Constantly seeing a color tires receptor cells associated with that color. Adapting, they cease firing messages to the brain. Staring at a red image, then at white paper produces an "after-image" in green. Tired red receptors do not immediately respond to the color change, while green receptors function normally. Momentarily we see green only, until the red receptors restart. Staring at green images gives transitory red "after-images"; yellow produces blue and vice-versa.

Time Frame

Staring at a color for 20 seconds is sufficient to induce adaptation. "After-images" last around 10 seconds.

References

• Science Buddies: Now You See it, Now You Don't: A Chromatic Adaptation Project
• Neuroscience for Kids: Color Vision
• Color Cube: Illusions: Chromatic Adaptation
• Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne: Research: Chromatic Adaptation

Resources

• Access Excellence Classic Collection: How We See: The First Steps in Human Vision
• Best Optical Illusion: Chromatic Adaptation
• Neuroscience for Kids: The Retina