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Abstract

Visual adaptation is a powerful tool to behaviorally investigate the tuning properties of neural processes by temporarily impairing the neural processes of a perceptual-cognitive function. In a typical adaptation paradigm participants are asked to report their subjective impression about an ambiguous stimulus (e.g. morphed action between handshake and high-five) after they have been exposed for a prolonged amount of time to an adapting stimulus (e.g. handshake). It is typically found that participants report the ambiguous stimulus to look opposite to the adapted stimulus (i.e. a high-five). One fundamental objection to these adaptation effects, especially high-level adaptation effects, is that they might reflect a subjective bias on the decisional rather than perceptual level. Here we put this alternative interpretation to a test for action adaptation. 14 participants were adapted to an action and subsequently completed an adaptation task or an absolute identification task. Adaptation did not only impair the subjective report about an action in the adaptation task but also affected participants’ objective ability to absolutely identify actions in the absolute identification task. Hence our results suggest that action adaptation takes effect on a perceptual rather than decisional level. We therefore suggest that high-level action adaptation complements other techniques that locally impair neural processes (e.g. TMS). Specifically, it seems that action adaptation is able to transiently change the response properties of neural processes underlying a certain visual function across the visual hierarchy.