The extraction of information from visual persistence.

Seven-letter targets were flashed for 50 msec and followed by either a blank adapting field (persisting representation of the stimulus fully available) or a series of continuous cycles of target and mask until the cumulative duration of the target matched the estimated duration of visual persistence (stimulus physically present for same interval as representation). The reportability of information from the targets in the latter case was only 50% that in the former. The interpretation is that visual persistence is an active, continuously operating process rather than a passive neural copy of the stimulus.