Pairs of stimulus attributes, such as color and orientation, that are normally uncorrelated in the real world are generally perceived independently; that is, the perception of color is usually uninfluenced by orientation and vice versa. Yet this independence can be altered by relatively brief exposure to artificially correlated stimuli, as has been shown for vision1. Here we report an analogous contingent aftereffect in the auditory system that can persist for four hours after the initial adaptation.
