An adaptation-induced pop-out in visual search.

The present study demonstrates that an object embedded in an array of identical objects can pop-out. Dependent on the stimuli preceding the search display, local (chromatic) adaptation causes an identical object to pop-out because it appears to have a colour (Expt 1) or brightness (Expt 2) that is slightly different from the colour and brightness of the other objects in the display. Experiment 3 shows that this pop-out even occurs when the stimulus preceding the search display is presented for only 100 msec.