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Abstract

Sensorimotor adaptation can be defined as a perceptual adaptation whose effects depend on the occurrence and nature of the performed motor actions. Examples of sensorimotor adaptation
can be found in the literature on prisms. This literature has contributed to establish the
role of action in the perception of space-related attributes like orientation, curvature, size or
depth and it is now common to think that space perception involves adaptable sensorimotor
mechanisms. On the other hand, until recently, the influence of action on color perception
had never been successfully addressed experimentally. In a series of experiments, Bompas
O’Regan (2006a, b) showed that sensorimotor adaptation could be easily obtained for color,
as a consequence of the introduction of a new sensorimotor contingency between eye movements
and color changes. In an adaptation phase, trials involved the successive presentation
of a red patch on the left and a green patch on the right. This adaptation stage introduces a
correlation between left-right (respectively right-left) eye saccades and red-green (respectively
green-red) color change. Perceptual consequences of this adaptation can be measured thanks
to a test stage, performed before and after the adaptation. Schematically, the results show that,
after 40 minutes of adaptation, when two yellow patches are successively presented on each
side of the screen, the left patch needs to be reddish and the right patch greenish for subjective
equality to be obtained. Similar sensorimotor adaptation has also been shown for blue-yellow
and luminance variations. The dependency of the effect to the properties of the eye saccade
(departure position, size and orientation) has now been characterized. These results constitute
clear evidence for a role of experience and eye movements in perceived color and argue for
the involvement in color perception of mechanisms continuously tuned to sensorimotor contingencies.
The relation of these experimental findings towards a sensorimotor theory of color
perception will be discussed.