Dynamics of color contrast adaptation.

Many forms of color adaptation have been found to reflect both short- and long-term adjustments. We explored the buildup and decay of adaptation to chromatic contrast (temporal modulations of color) for which the dynamics are unknown. A matching task was used to track the perceived contrast of chromatic pulses of varying physical contrast during and after adapting for 1 h to a high contrast modulation repeated over five successive days. The adaptation was characterized by rapid response changes that remained stable in both time course and form across sessions. There was no consistent evidence for long-term plasticity over the time scales we tested.