Perception of size of one object among many

Adaptation to a grating of properly chosen frequency may lead to two apparently conflicting observations: Another grating may then appear to be of increased frequency (compared with its "unadapted" frequency) while the individual bars of the grating appear to have widened. This perceived widening parallels previous results with single bars. By attending to only one grating bar, the subject effectively seems to change the grating frequency spectrum to that of a single bar.